An arts extra: horror film “Mama” set in Clifton Forge?
Here’s a Corner Shot I wrote about this surprising, and funny, Virginia connection:
As my wife and I watched the new horror film “Mama” recently, my amusement grew, for a fun yet distracting reason.
The abandoned, haunted cabin where the movie’s supernatural hullaballoo begins and ends happens to be located about nine miles outside Clifton Forge, by the shore of “Douthat Lake.”
But the drive to Clifton Forge, as the movie portrays it, looks suspiciously like a Canadian mountain pass. The scene, with its precarious mountainside drops, recalled the opening of Stanley Kubrick’s “The Shining,” and I just don’t think aerial shots of U.S. 220 would produce such a view.
Not to mention, a box containing crucial artifacts, clearly labeled as Alleghany County court records, first appears in a chamber full of endless, multistory shelves akin to the warehouse seen at the end of “Raiders of the Lost Ark.” I’ve been to the Alleghany County Courthouse, and the clerks never showed me that particular room.
In fact, “Mama,” executive produced by Guillermo del Toro (“Hellboy,” “Pan’s Labyrinth,”) was filmed in Ontario. It’s expanded from a short film by first-time director Andres Muschietti, which features the gaunt specter of the title but contains no Virginia place names. Perhaps the writers drew Clifton Forge out of a hat?
It reminded me of the “X-Files” episode that set a demonic tale in “Hollins, Virginia,” or the “Criminal Minds” episode where a serial killer stalks the Blue Ridge Parkway, featuring a rooftop chase across a “Roanoke” skyline full of buildings taller then we’ve ever seen here.
“Mama,” however, does at least prominently feature a railroad overpass.
February 8, 2013 - 11:53 AM
I always notice stuff like that too. I remember the XFiles episode in Cave Spring. They showed such notable landmarks as “Roanoke Hospital”.
In Martin Scorcese’s film “New York, New York” Liza Minnelli and Robert De Niro play music at a supposedly famous Roanoke night club I’ve never heard of.
A man in the TV show “Touch” is trying to get to Roanoke at the beginning of the first season.
That last item makes me wonder how hard it is to get to Roanoke in that version of reality — is it like Shangri-La?
He was having trouble getting a flight. Touch is a show about fate and fate was working against this fellow. Even though he had won millions in the lottery. It’s a good show, a bit complicated but good.
If you’ve ever seen Aronofsky’s film Pi, it follows a lot of those principles. Obsession with the Fibonachi sequence and crazy secret Kaballah numerology and all that BS.
Or Kabbalah if you’d prefer. =(
I have seen “Pi” and am a huge fan. Of the movie, not so much the number.
From Roanoke to Clifton forge if you go 220 then leave 220 and go through the back way into Glen Wilton it is a very rough road.
From Covington to Clifton Forge if you go the back way through Dolly Ann there is one point where the fire-road there makes your skin crawl…
Old Route 220 I grew up riding on before they fixed everything was a little scarey “dead mans curve” to be exact.
Though I think they may have thought about a very windy road if you go through Buena Vista over the Mountain. I wish they would have shown the lake more though maybe if they had done it correctly they could have drew some attention to Clifton Forge a town that struggles day to day.
Charles, I agree. It would have been nice if the filmmakers made more of an effort to get the town’s character correct.
Is the cliff shown in the film based on a real cliff in Clifton Forge or somewhere else (Ontario)? Or is it simply computer graphics?
Horror fan, so far as I know the cliff in the movie is fictional.
When I watch movies that I think are supposed to be in Usa I pull out a map (yes I’m older still get a map out–) I looked for clifton forge could not find it. I hear Richmond and Falls church mentioned in the movie. I think well I knew where they were. still curious where the MTS were though.
The mountains around Clifton Forge don’t really look like that. Here’s the town website: http://www.cliftonforgeva.gov/dev/index.php
Thanks for answering. I’ll keep your page in mind next time I watch a horror flim or any movie and just HAVE to know where it was flimed. found it on a old 1998 map of VA.
Hello, I am currently and always have lived in Clifton Forge although a couple miles out of town. We heard the local rumor mill about the setting of Mama and just finished watching it. I found it funny how Douthat was mispronounced as “doo-that” as a lot of out of town folks do. The movie is spooky for sure. To answer future questions regarding locations and landmarks, absolutely none of the roads, cliffs, bridges or the pictured lake are actually here..Oddly, the Clifton Forge 9 mi. Sign does exist just not the one shown in the movie. I would love to know how the locations came to be in the story. Is it possible a writer stayed at Douthat cabins on vacation or sequester to write the script? We may never know.