Director of cult classic My Bloody Valentine says Hamilton is 'just so beautifully apocalyptic'

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 film‐ makers, producers and speci‐ al 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 Wednes‐ day night screening of his 1981 Canadian cult-classic slasher My Bloody Valentine, Mihalka and local special ef‐ fects artists Brian Rowe and Desirée van de Laar sat down with CBC Hamilton to peel back the bloody curtain.

Economics and geo‐ graphy drove Hamilton's popularity

Economics are a big reason why filming in Hamilton is so popular, Rowe, who runs Locked in the Cellar Cre‐ ations 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 com‐ munity 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 ma‐ jor production hub.

It's becoming more ex‐ pensive as it gets more popu‐ lar, he said, but affordability has been important for hor‐ ror movie productions, which don't usually have high bud‐ gets. "We want to put that money into cool special ef‐ fects, not into parking fees."

The geography and the landscape also make a differ‐ ence.

Rowe said Hamilton's rela‐ tive 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 of‐ fers a lot of variety from Dun‐ das'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 qual‐ ity," said Mihalka, who's pro‐ duced and been showrunner on a number of films and se‐ ries 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 re‐ ported that the city's film in‐ dustry brought in about $50 million. The year before, it hit an all-time high of $72 mil‐ lion.

For horror fans, practi‐ cal 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 de‐ velop a range of props and prosthetics, such as weapons, monsters or gory body parts.

They're also shooting their own films, like the hor‐ ror comedy short Dungeon of Death, which van de Laar wrote and Rowe directed.

Horror fans want practical effects over computer effec‐ ts, they say.

"Computer blood still looks like computer blood," Rowe said. "It's different."

As Mihalka puts it: "[fans] want to see that head ex‐ plode 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 be‐ cause 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 Sidney Mines, N.S., My Bloody Valentine follows a cast of characters in a min‐ ing town as a mysterious killer in miners' gear conduc‐ ts a brutal killing spree.

The 90-minute cut initially released in theatres had about three minutes of mate‐ rial cut to appease the Ameri‐ can 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 Hamil‐ ton, that's what will be play‐ ing at the east-end Playhouse Cinemas, in 4K.

Mihalka said his film, which has received high praise from directors Quen‐ tin Tarantino and Eli Roth, en‐ joyed a revival in popularity after a 2009 remake drove in‐ terest in the original.

Rowe said the movie still holds up, which Mihalka par‐ tially attributes to the who‐ dunit 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 sat‐ isfaction can you get than to have made something that has given so much pleasure and so much fun to so many people?"