Writer-director Robert Eggers got the idea for the setting of his popular new horror movie from the area he grew up in.

The Witch
The Witch
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New England is filled with spooky locations that have inspired fear in our childhoods, and this especially true for certain filmmakers who just released a horror movie based on this feeling.

New Hampshire native Robert Eggers, writer and director of "The Witch" that was just released in theaters, told the Boston Globe that his movie was inspired by the woods in Southern New Hampshire where he was raised.

“Being from a rural town in New England, you’re around these dilapidated Colonial farmhouses and family graveyards in the middle of the woods,” he says. “For me, New England’s past has always been part of my consciousness. You kind of had the feeling the woods were haunted.”

Larry Busacca/Getty Images
Robert Eggers (Credit: Larry Busacca/Getty Images)
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The Lee native really wanted to shoot the film in New Hampshire, but unfortunately the tax incentives in Canada made it easier to finance the movies, according to Indiewire. The horror movie earned $8.7 million at the box office for its opening weekend.

He did return to New Hampshire to screen the movie at the NH Film Festival last year.

Eggers graduated from Oyster River High School before following his dream of making movies. One of his old classmates has a review that describes just how horrifying the movie can be.

As a guy who looks for top shelf horror movies, this one is definitely on my list of must-see movies this year. I know just how scary some spots in New England can be, especially around Halloween, and appreciate how Eggers is inspired by the disturbing history of the region.

Watch the trailer:

 

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