Scroll through the horror movie memories
October 29, 2014 9:07 AM   Subscribe

Why not just quit your job and spend all of your savings on a horror-themed road trip where you visit the real locations of some iconic scary movies. If that sounds like too much effort, well we've done a Google-based trip ourselves.
Here's what we found...

Here's the list:

The Omen
Halloween
Rosemary's Baby
Poltergeist
The Mist
Scream 2
Drag Me To Hell
The Fog
The Birds
Shaun of the Dead
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome (26 comments total) 16 users marked this as a favorite
 
Why not just quit your job and spend all of your savings on a horror-themed road trip where you visit the real locations of some iconic scary movies.

Because I could keep my job and my savings and just visit those places when I happen to be nearby them?
posted by Sangermaine at 9:10 AM on October 29, 2014


Fake. The house from Poltergeist is in another dimension now, watch the movie.
posted by Hoopo at 9:16 AM on October 29, 2014 [4 favorites]


I would have thought Amityville would be on there, just for it's sheer iconacy..
posted by k5.user at 9:19 AM on October 29, 2014 [1 favorite]


Don't forget the abandoned McDonalds that was used in Poultrygeist!!!

It was an abandoned McDonalds at the time, now it's an abandoned Cricket.
posted by troika at 9:46 AM on October 29, 2014


No Evans City Cemetery? Boo.
posted by Thorzdad at 9:48 AM on October 29, 2014 [1 favorite]


No Stanley Hotel in Colorado, that inspired Stephen King to write The Shining? I stayed there a couple years ago and it was terrifying (and gorgeous).
posted by silverstatue at 9:55 AM on October 29, 2014 [1 favorite]


(or the just-as-accessible Monroeville Mall )
posted by k5.user at 10:00 AM on October 29, 2014 [2 favorites]


You had me at "quit your job".
posted by penduluum at 10:02 AM on October 29, 2014 [6 favorites]


I like to think they keep sending google cars to photograph the bomb range in the desert from The Hills Have Eyes, but they never come back...
posted by mannequito at 10:02 AM on October 29, 2014 [1 favorite]


Hey, now, you can always take a swing through DC as well.
posted by Navelgazer at 10:03 AM on October 29, 2014 [1 favorite]


The manor house that was used for the exteriors for the remake of The Haunting is fairly close to where I live. Whenever the film turns up on tv I just watch the beginning to see the manor house and for the thrill of recognition and then as soon as it goes inside (and into the studio) I turn it off.
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 10:06 AM on October 29, 2014


My best friend lives in DC and insisted on one visit we go to the Exorcist stairs. I demurred.

I was thrilled to learn you can visit the house they used for the exterior shots of Black Christmas in Toronto, though! I am so there!
posted by Kitteh at 10:07 AM on October 29, 2014


Secret jackpot inside info source:

I've written some similar articles for another site (for cult films and "sci-fi dystopia films"), and there's one web site that was a MOTHERLODE of info for "where movies were filmed" that I used for a lot of research. So if you wanna know what's actually near you, there you are.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 10:12 AM on October 29, 2014 [2 favorites]


No House on Haunted Hill?
posted by usonian at 10:43 AM on October 29, 2014


There's also:
112 Ocean Avenue
Fields House (technically not a movie but still up there with anything else we're listing)
Camp No-Be-Bo-Sco
posted by Navelgazer at 10:45 AM on October 29, 2014


You can visit The Burbs' Mayfield Place by watching Desperate Housewives, does that count
posted by troika at 11:30 AM on October 29, 2014 [1 favorite]


A ton of horror movie locations are in and around LA, so if you live there you can do what I did when I lived there, which is just take horror movie walks around your neighborhood. I could even walk up to Bronson Cave, which is not just the Bat Cave, but also the location for Robot Monster, The Day the World Ended, Night of the Blood Beast, Eegah, and the Lost Skeleton of the Cadavras, among hundreds of others.

It's harder now that I am in Omaha, but I still get out to LA now and then, and I can always pop by the Nightmare on Elm Street house or the Prince of Darkness Church. Heck, in one afternoon I traveled around LA and remade Drag Me To Hell, from memory, at the actual locations, using actual props, and one of the stand-ins from the original movie.

Horror locations are a lot of fun.
posted by maxsparber at 11:54 AM on October 29, 2014


I grew up just over the state line from Calumet City, IL. That's the town where the nearest movie theater was.

I'll never forget the screams when they announced Buffalo Bill's location.
posted by bibliogrrl at 11:55 AM on October 29, 2014


...scare your partner by putting a sheet over your head again, because it's still funny. Ish.

"Ish." Is this Minnesotanism creeping into wide usage?!
posted by batfish at 12:17 PM on October 29, 2014


There's also:
112 Ocean Avenue


Not technically a movie filming location, as they shot the original movie in a look-alike house in (I think) New Jersey. Also a shame is that the iconic "pie slice" windows have been replaced with boring rectangles. Bleh.
posted by ShutterBun at 12:24 PM on October 29, 2014 [1 favorite]


Back in the Old Days (1973 to be precise) the Universal Studios Tour went through the actual studios and back lots. What made this fun was seeing how mundane and even silly sets looked by the bright light of day. I especially recall a street where Marcus Welby and the Cleavers were neighbors of a strangely undersized house on a small knoll--the "Psycho" house, no more than about 9' tall. Another fun detail: being shown a squeeze bottle labeled "Max Factor Deluxe Cinematic Blood" and being told that the blood used in Psycho was actually chocolate syrup, which photographed well in black and white.

One set we could not visit was the "Streets of Old New York" set, which was lit up and actively in use when we were touring. Pressed, the guide would only divulge that the shooting was for an upcoming release called "The Sting." Those on the tour agreed that it had to be some kind of insect-themed sci-fi horror thing.

Not much charm in the horror genre anymore. There's too much in the news that's far, far more horrifying than any fiction could be.
posted by kinnakeet at 2:03 PM on October 29, 2014


-the "Psycho" house, no more than about 9'

You might be misremembering, because the Psycho house is still standing (albeit in a slightly different part of the backlot) and it's full size. (the Halloween Horror Nights tour even lets you get your picture taken on the front porch.) I could be mistaken, but I think it was even a "practical" set (meaning the inside was furnished for filming). Also fun was walking around the crashed 747 seen in Spielberg's War of the Worlds, complete with zombies running amok.
posted by ShutterBun at 2:36 PM on October 29, 2014


I recall the first level of the Psycho house being full-sized but the second floor being truncated and then the house was made to look taller by forced perspective. A Reddit user seems to think even the first floor was 3/4 scale and the top floor was 5/8 scale, like the buildings at Disneyland.
posted by maxsparber at 5:45 PM on October 29, 2014


FWIW My recollection from the first Universal Studios tour I took in 1991 is that the tour guide said the Psycho house was built at 3/4 scale.

(I still have the souvenier Bates Motel matchbooks I bought on that trip.)
posted by usonian at 5:55 AM on October 30, 2014


Yep, 3/4 scale is correct. Turns out the house has been rebuilt/moved a bunch of times over the years and was never a practical set) but at any rate, 9 feet wasn't doing it justice.
posted by ShutterBun at 6:27 AM on October 31, 2014


Can't do a Street View link from my mobile, but Guildford Cathedral for the Omen as well.
posted by MattWPBS at 12:26 PM on October 31, 2014


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