Directors of horror and thriller films tend to choose unique places to film. Backgrounds that portray a dark and campy aesthetic, such as an old cabin in the middle of the woods, or a lonesome lighthouse next to a stormy coast, can emphasize the stories being told and provide them with a realistic sense of eeriness. It is no surprise that many directors select Atlantic Canada as the location for their unsettling films. The Maritimes are famous for small rural towns, vast farmlands, thick forests, and foggy coasts, which have inspired many filmmakers.
Here are some of my top picks for the best thriller and horror movies filmed in Atlantic Canada:
- The Lighthouse (2019) directed by Robert Eggers
At the top of my list is The Lighthouse, which was filmed on Cape Forchu in Yarmouth County, Nova Scotia. This disturbing psychological thriller and fantasy features 19th-century lighthouse keepers – a timberman from Maine and a former sailor – who work on a remote island off the coast of New England. It portrays the pair’s progressive loss of sanity after being left stranded by a violent storm. The story draws from a real-life accident that occurred at a lighthouse in Wales, known as the Smalls Lighthouse Tragedy. Visually, The Lighthouse is inspired by photography of 1890s New England, maritime-themed French cinema from the 1930s, and symbolist art. The unsettling nature of the stormy Atlantic coast, in combination with the movie’s black-and-white presentation, truly accentuates the 19th-century thriller aesthetic that the director intended on. Its unique style, gorey horror, thought-provoking meaning, and comical moments are what made the film so well-received.
2. Blood Quantum (2019) directed by Jeff Barnaby
This action-packed zombie apocalypse movie was primarily filmed on the Kahnawake and Listuguj reserves in Quebec, however, additional scenes were filmed in Campbellton, New Brunswick. In Blood Quantum, the Mi’kma’ki peoples from the fictional community of Red Crow are strangely the only ones immune to a worldwide zombie plague. The film’s landscape and environment might be familiar to many viewers, while also raising interesting questions about Canadian history, colonization, and horror as a medium for revealing alternative perspectives of history. Presenting a sort-of-alternate history (with the cultural remembrance of how epidemics such as smallpox transferred from colonizers in the 17th century and severely affected many Indigenous communities), in Blood Quantum, indigeneity is the key to the characters’ survival from the zombie plague. The theme is very indicative of how colonialism has affected Indigenous communities in Canada. The community being the only one immune to the zombie virus is a play on how the land originally belonged to First Nation communities. The movie generally received lots of great feedback for its socio-political subtext.
3. My Bloody Valentine (1981) directed by George Mihalka
My Bloody Valentine is a Canadian slasher movie filmed in Sydney Mines, Nova Scotia. The film is about a group of young adults who get pursued by a vengeful killer in mining gear at their Valentine’s Day party. The film received a lot of backlash, some saying that it was too much like Halloween and that it was a “dismal and depressing horror film,” as described by Gene Siskel of the Chicago Tribune. However, others stated that the film’s cinematography and musical score were well done and that the setting really gave the film some powerful imagery.
These films are perfect if you need a good scare or if you are simply interested in seeing the local imagery that’s used in them. The Atlantic Canadian provinces may be an ongoing target for filming thrillers and horrors in the near future too. A short film inspired by Stephen King’s “Last Rung of the Latter” began filming in June 2024 in Fredericton, New Brunswick.
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