Wake Up Dead Man filming locations: Where was the Knives Out film shot?

It's been a couple of weeks since Wake Up Dead Man – the third entry in Rian Johnson's Knives Out series – arrived on Netflix, and many subscribers will no doubt have already watched the film and discovered who was responsible for the murder of Josh Brolin's Monsignor Wicks.

So far, the film has been going down very well with viewers after similarly attracting praise from critics, with our own review praising it for the slightly more unsettling tone it adopts and even suggesting that it might just be the best entry in the series yet.

Of course, in addition to the excellent central mystery, there are many other aspects of the film to enjoy: from its brilliant star-studded cast led once again by Daniel Craig, to a stellar soundtrack featuring an iconic Tom Waits tune.

And one other thing which may have caught your eye is the locations, specifically the church that was used as the focal point of the drama – Our Lady of Perpetual Fortitude, as it is named in the film.

If you were wondering which real locations were used as the backdrop for Wake Up Dead Man, read on for everything you need to know.

Wake Up Dead Man filming locations: Where was the Knives Out film shot?

Although the film is set in the fictional town of Chimney Rock in upstate New York, the bulk of filming actually took place in the UK – with interiors shot at Leavesden Studios in Watford and exteriors at the Church of the Holy Innocents in High Beach, Epping Forest.

Meanwhile, further exterior footage – for the scenes set away from the Parish and in the town itself – was shot in Cold Spring, New York.

Speaking in the film's press notes, Production Designer Rick Heinrichs explained how, as with the previous two films in the series, his first task had been to find the "linchpin location" for the movie.

He explained that he felt that he had to find a location in which "every particular feature is a candidate for a reveal, either as a bona fide clue or a red herring, or simply as character texture that provides visual narrative."

The plan had always been to shoot in the UK, but as for why the Church of the Holy Innocents was specifically selected, Heinrichs explained: "We scoured the UK possibilities from North to South and East to West, it was devilishly hard to find a church that didn’t look at least several centuries too old for a US church.

"In the research of American churches though, I did find a tradition of neo-Gothic/Victorian age, mid-19-century American churches that overlapped with a few of the candidate UK churches that we had identified. The one that really caught our eye was Holy Innocents Church in Epping Forest close to London."

He added: "Besides checking the plausibility box, it had a storybook-like charm in its arboreal setting within an old graveyard that seemed to support Rian’s intent."

As for the decision to film the interior scenes on studio sets rather than on location, he explained that the church itself was too small for the job it needed to do, explaining that it was really "more chapel than church" and that it "was disappointingly bland inside."

He continued: "It lacked scripted interior features which would have been necessary for us to build in any case. The nail in the coffin was that there was always going to be considerable destruction of interior elements to consider, something that we felt certain would be unacceptably restricted in doing properly at a real location church."

Meanwhile, as explained by BBC News, the vicar of the real church, Reverend Jane Yeadon, was so delighted that it had been chosen for the film that she had it written into the contract that she had to be on set every time filming took place.

Although this was partly for security and safety reasons, it was also because she was a huge fan of both the previous films in the franchise. Filming also led to some surreal moments for the Reardon, with Mila Kunis even mistaking her for an extra.

"It is understandable," she said. "It is a film set in a church with lots of priests... but she was so mortified and kept apologising."

Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery is now streaming on Netflix. Sign up for Netflix from £5.99 a month. Netflix is also available on Sky Glass and Virgin Media Stream.

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