Casa Loma is an enchanting castle that sits majestically against the royal Toronto skyline. Because of its medieval mystique, a great amount of movies have been filmed there.
Once the grand home of prominent Canadian Sir Henry Pellatt, it now attracts not only Hollywood, but tourists from all over the world. Pellatt , also known as “Pellatt the Plunger” for his ambitious and sometimes foolhardy investments, went from millionaire to penniless over the course of his lifetime. For all we know, his spirit may be haunting Casa Loma for eternity, luring fortune seeking Hollywood producers to make repeated visits to film movies, television programs and commercials there. It is no wonder that Hollywood would want to capitalize on such remarkable history and reputation and use this elaborate castle for a movie set.
Here are five of my favorite movies filmed at Casa Loma:
Extreme Measures
This movie, starring Hugh Grant and Gene Hackman, is a 1996 thriller about a sinister conspiracy in the medical community that begins to unravel after the death of a homeless man. This movie addresses the ethics of experimenting on people for advancements in research. Should you sacrifice one for the good of many? Is one person’s life more valuable than another’s?
Maximum Risk
In this 1996 action film, Jean-Claude Van Damme is a French cop who places himself in his usual typecast role. He becomes an international crusader against a crime syndicate after the twin brother he didn’t know he had gets murdered. Van Damme takes his brother’s place and ends up entangled in the seedy New York City underworld as he retraces his steps to get to the truth of who he was before he died.
The Skulls
This 1999 movie with Joshua Jackson is about a student on an Ivy League campus who is inducted into a secret society known as “The Skulls” that is far more dangerous than he initially realizes. Once he begins to connect the dots and learns the highly political society killed his best friend, he sets out to wage war against them. This story involves betrayal, warped views of entitlement, rites of passage and free rides for the rich.
Darkman
Liam Neeson is a scientist in this 1990 action film who was working on a project to stabilize and perfect synthetic skin until thugs beat him up and blew up his lab. He becomes severely disfigured in the explosion and undergoes a procedure that enables him to acquire superhuman resistance to pain. He then applies his previous research to make masks for his face and creeps back out into the world to seek vigilante justice.
The Caveman’s Valentine
In this 2000 movie, Samuel L. Jackson portrays a brilliant pianist who develops schizophrenia and becomes homeless by choice. He abandons his family and career and takes up residence in a cave in Central Park. He attempts to pull out of his madness and reunite with his cop daughter by avenging the death of another homeless person, a young man who was found frozen to death in a tree by his cave on Valentine’s Day.
I can’t help but wonder if any unexplained phenomena occurred during the filming of these movies. Pellatt was known as a powerful man who never gave up. Even though the City of Toronto eventually took over the castle for repayment of back taxes and forced Sir Henry out of his home, maybe he never gave up Casa Loma in spirit. I find it ironic that two of the movies on my list involve the deaths of homeless men.
Pellatt knew a great deal about electrical energy in his living years. He had established the Toronto Electric Light Company and had built a power generating station at Niagara Falls that brought hydroelectricity to Toronto for the first time. Maybe in death he has applied his genius to discover a way to use a similar energy to cross back over. Who knows, perhaps one of the extras in one of the movies is actually the ghost of Sir Henry. I wouldn’t put it past him.