Creepy holiday horror movie filmed in Smiths Falls – www.insideottawavalley.com/

Ottawa filmmakers found a perfect shooting location for their new horror film, Unholy Night, in an unlikely place the Gallipeau Centre.

After looking for a location to shoot part of their film at operating hospitals in Ottawa, the group was unable to secure a spot close to home due to patient privacy issues. So, they expanded their search and stumbled upon Smiths Falls Gallipeau Centre, which in its former life was a hospital designed to house people with cognitive and physical disabilities.

The location, though initially not what they envisioned, turned out to be perfect for the film. So much so, that the filmmakers even added scenes and rewrote parts of their script to take full advantage of the Gallipeau Centre's unique character and history.

The location helped inspire the movie, said one of the films three directors, Kristian Lariviere, in an interview with the Record News.

Unholy Night is a feature anthology film that weaves together three short Christmas time horror stories through the tale of a night nurse and an elderly patient as they bond on Christmas Eve over their mutual hatred for Christmas within a fictional hospital set in the Gallipeau Centre.

The movie involves a ghost story and murder, with a bit of cannibalism thrown in for good measure.

Its meant to be fun, said Lariviere. But hopefully some parts will scare people.

The cast and crew filmed overnight at the former Rideau Regional Centre a hospital in operation between 1951 and 2009 on Friday, Jan. 27 and Saturday, Jan. 28.

The hospital remained open until March 2009, when it was finally closed by the province. The building remained vacant until it was resurrected by the Gallipeaus years later to create a new business and residential complex in Smiths Falls.

Finding a location was hard, said Lariviere, who said the filmmakers spend months looking at locations around Ottawa only to be turned down for patient privacy issues. We spend months looking.

But when he and the films writer/producer, Jennifer Allanson, went to the Gallipeau Centre late last summer to scout the location though more abandoned looking than the filmmakers originally wanted they fell in love.

Its an amazing location and hasnt been over-used, said Lariviere. It worked out really nicely.

Theres so much character on film.

And while the creep-factor of the Gallipeau Centres history added to, and even helped inspire the film, it also gave the cast and crew of Unholy Night a few real-life scares of their own.

During the overnight shoots between 6 p.m. and 7 a.m., some cast and crew members reported strange things going on including hearing voices and seeing, what they believed to be, apparitions.

During the shoot we all got a little freaked out, said Lariviere, who wanted to clarify that he is usually a skeptic of paranormal happenings.

Lariviere said when he was coming back into the Gallipeau Centre a floor below their set as clich as it sounds heard giggling children.

I did a double take, looked around, but everyone was upstairs, he said.

Lariviere also reported that when a cast member went to the bathroom located downstairs from where the film was being shot on Saturday night, she said when she came back out into the hallway she swore there was an apparition at the end of the hall copying her body movements.

But, despite the unexplained encounters, the team also had fun in some of the creepy abandoned spaces at the Gallipeau Centre by placing an old mannequin they found on set in random areas to scare each other to keep the mood light.

Lariviere said making the choice to film in Smiths Falls, about an hours drive from his home in downtown Ottawa was well worth any of the logistical inconvenience.

On the production side it was a little inconvenient, but what we gained far outweighed that, he said. It was perfect.

Lariviere also gave big props to those at the Gallipeau Centre, who helped them out during production.

People at the Gallipeau Centre were great, he said. They were great to work with.

The films shooting wrapped on Jan. 28 and is now in post-production.

Lariviere said he hopes the film will be released for the holidays in 2017.

Evelyn Harford is the reporter for the Smiths Falls Record News. She can be reached at eharford@metroland.com.

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