Hollywood Locates Movie Productions in North Central Massachusetts
- Visit North Central
By Chris Coyle
Hollywood producers have located mystery or Halloween movies in North Central Massachusetts.
Based on a true and haunting story dating from April 14, 1755 and released in 2004, The Legend of Lucy Keyes chronicles what happened when four-year-old Lucy Keyes tried to follow her older sisters to the shores of a pond in Princeton to gather sand. Lucy disappeared and, despite repeated and frantic searching, she was never found. Grief-stricken and devastated, Lucy’s mother Martha Keyes supposedly wandered the woods near Mount Wachusett for years calling for her daughter, thus fueling local ghost legends.
In the 2004 movie, a city family moves to the area, and a supernatural tale unfolds with the ghost of a woman wandering through the woods at night trying to find her daughter lost 250 years before. The production filmed in locations around Princeton, including the summit of Mount Wachusett.
Two seasons of the Hulu production Castle Rock, based on Stephen King’s novel, were filmed in the area to represent the fictional town of Castle Rock, Maine. Clinton, Gardner, Lancaster, Orange, and Shirley provided settings for twenty episodes of the series along with film sets at New England Studios, located in Devens.
Set in Stephen King’s multiverse, the spine-tingling story which premiered in 2018 as a psychological-horror saga of darkness and light.
Shot from 2021 to 2022, Dexter: New Blood filmed at spots in North Central Massachusetts with the set for Dexter’s cabin at Camp Collier in Gardner. Other locations for the movie include locations on Grafton, Route 117 in Lancaster, and Nashoba Regional High School in Bolton as well as at the Bull Run Restaurant in Shirley.
Less spooky, the 1992 drama film School Ties includes many scenes shot in Gardner. Blue Moon Diner on Main Street—Skip’s Diner One in the movie—provides the locale for a scene shot with Brendan Fraser. Film crews adapted O’Neil’s Bicycle Shop to serve as a movie theater. Part of downtown Gardner transformed to resemble the 1950s. Although most of the movie filmed on location in Concord, crews actually filmed at a Leominster liquor store for a scene at the bus depot in Scranton, Pennsylvania.
An independent coming-of-age film written, directed, and produced by Gardner High School graduate Alex Lucier, Summer Interlude was filmed in Gardner at locations including the Blue Moon Diner. Scenes were also shot at Peaceful Acres Campground in Hubbardston, with a trailer released in January 2026. Summer Interlude follows a young filmmaker balancing dreams, college, and parental expectations.
BOLIO: Spirit of the Mustang, a comedy film scheduled for release in 2026, tells the story of a depressed shop teacher. It features scenes shot over nearly two weeks in Gardner, including at Blue Moon Diner. Tony Shalhoub of Monk fame is an executive producer and actor.
Kathy Wright, who with her husband owns Blue Moon Diner, commented that she found all actors fabulous to work with. Some diner employees, the crew, and some random actors appear inside the diner during filming.
