Director of cult classic My Bloody Valentine says Hamilton is 'just so beautifully apocalyptic'
'You can put the camera just about anywhere [in Hamilton] and it looks cool,' director says
If you're looking to explode a human head or make blood and guts from scratch, there are people in Hamilton who know how to do it just right.
The city is a popular place to shoot low and mid-budget flicks, and a number of filmmakers, producers and special effects artists in the horror community call the city home — including veteran director George Mihalka and his wife Susan Curran, he said.
As Hamilton's Playhouse Cinema prepares a Wednesday night screening of his 1981 Canadian cult-classic slasher My Bloody Valentine, Mihalka and local special effects artists Brian Rowe and Desirée Van De Laar sat down with CBC Hamilton to peel back the bloody curtain.
Economics and geography drove Hamilton's popularity
Economics are a big reason why filming in Hamilton is so popular, Rowe, who runs Locked in the Cellar Creations with Van De Laar, said. The two of them started their business in 2014 and moved to Hamilton from Oakville a year later in the hopes that a budding film industry would bloom.
They are all part of a community of people who make horror films in Hamilton.
"Toronto is so unlivable now as far as rents and to get permits," Rowe said. But "you pick a day and there's a film somewhere in Hamilton."
Mihalka said he fell in love with Hamilton when shooting here about a decade ago, when doing so cost a fraction of what it did in nearby Toronto, which is now a major production hub.
It's becoming more expensive as it gets more popular, he said, but affordability has been important for horror movie productions, which don't usually have high budgets. "We want to put that money into cool special effects, not into parking fees."
The geography and the landscape also make a difference.
Rowe said Hamilton's relative lack of traffic compared to Toronto means it's easier to close streets. It's also easy to travel between locations when filming. And the city offers a lot of variety from Dundas's forests and small-town feel to an urban core that can be made to look like a variety of cities.
Steeltown also has a "very interesting photogenic quality," said Mihalka, who's produced and been showrunner on a number of films and series including the upcoming Hungarian project Rise of the Raven. "You can put the camera just about anywhere [in Hamilton] and it looks cool."
Driving to Rowe and Van De Laar's east-end studio on a stormy Tuesday, "I was overlooking Mordor," he said, describing the way a sliver of sunlight shone above smoky waterfront factories. "Just so beautifully apocalyptic."
In 2023, CBC Hamilton reported that the city's film industry brought in about $50 million. The year before, it hit an all-time high of $72 million.
For horror fans, practical effects are still the way to go, effects artists say
It's been enough to keep Van De Laar and Rowe busy, they say. Although Van De Laar didn't like horror movies until she met Rowe. They now develop a range of props and prosthetics, such as weapons, monsters or gory body parts.
They're also shooting their own films, like the horror comedy short Dungeon of Death, which Van De Laar wrote and Rowe directed.
Horror fans want practical effects over computer effects, they say.
"Computer blood still looks like computer blood," Rowe said. "It's different."
As Mihalka puts it: "[fans] want to see that head explode just the right way."
And while materials can be expensive, Van De Laar said, improvements in camera technology mean you can't cheap out. "Everything has to be hyper realistic because the camera catches every pore and every flaw."
Mihalka said he thinks horror fans prefer physical effects in the same way many prefer physical media. At a recent screening of My Bloody Valentine in Toronto, he said he met someone with multiple editions of his film on different mediums.
My Bloody Valentine got a second wind
Filmed in Sydney Mines, N.S., My Bloody Valentine follows a cast of characters in a mining town as a mysterious killer in miners' gear conducts a brutal killing spree.
The 90-minute cut initially released in theatres had about three minutes of material cut to appease the American trade association that rated movies. Mihalka said he joked that it became "My Anemic Valentine" because a lot of the bloodiest effects were gone.
But now, viewers can see an uncensored version. On Wednesday evening in Hamilton, that's what will be playing at the east-end Playhouse Cinemas, in 4K.
Mihalka said his film, which has received high praise from directors Quentin Tarantino and Eli Roth, enjoyed a revival in popularity after a 2009 remake drove interest in the original.
Rowe said the movie still holds up, which Mihalka partially attributes to the whodunit plot, and the unusual setting. He said some of the film's action was shot 900 metres underground.
The cast still keeps in touch, he said, and they get together for conventions.
"What better sense of satisfaction can you get than to have made something that has given so much pleasure and so much fun to so many people?"
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