Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery filmed in Essex church

Last summer, in a quiet corner of one of England’s oldest forests, birdsong met boom microphones.

About 60 people make up the congregation of the Church of the Holy Innocents on High Beach in Epping Forest, although none of them are as famous as Daniel Craig, Glenn Close or Mila Kunis.

But these were just some of the Hollywood stars who had headed to this remote location to film Wake Up Dead Man, the latest Knives Out movie.

Although the series is known for its star-studded casts, the filming locations are equally critical.

The first film has the classic whodunnit setting of a grand old mansion, while its sequel Glass Onion was set on a billionaire’s private island.

In the latter film, the small Essex church doubles as a neo-Gothic church in upstate New York.

The crew’s vicar, the Rev. Jane Yeadon, wanted to be on set during filming so badly that she had it written into the contract.

This was to help protect the church, built in 1873, and to make sure no one stepped on any graves, but also because she was, and still is, a huge fan of the series.

During filming in the summer of 2024, the area around the church became “busier than Piccadilly Circus”, he says, describing the experience as “surreal”.

When Close introduced herself and shook her hand, she was dazzled and laughed when Mila Kunis mistook her for an extra, rather than an actual vicar.

“It’s understandable. It’s a movie set in a church with a lot of priests… but she was very mortified and kept apologizing,” he says.

While the church has previously been the location for the occasional student film, it has never before hosted a commercial production like this.

Location director Rachel Hyde says every inch of the cemetery and surrounding roads were used for filming, while the interior of the church became the actors’ green room.

“These days all of London is very busy filming because there is so much of it, so it’s great to use the Home Counties more and more,” he says.

What the crew didn’t know until they started filming was the forest’s long history of ghost stories.

Rachel says the locals would love to tell them stories about how the forest is supposedly haunted by the ghosts of legendary highwayman Dick Turpin, Queen Boudicca and many more.

Did this contribute to the film’s creepy, murder mystery vibe?

“I don’t know if the cast and Rian [Johnson, the film’s writer-director] we knew something, it was more like us on the periphery,” he says.

However, the stories apparently scared some members of the security team, who had to guard the set late at night.

Although no one can say how much money the church received for hosting the film’s makers (the information is considered commercially sensitive), it was enough to fund some much-needed repairs.

And since this is a Grade II listed building, restoring the church’s boundary wall or renovating the church organ is not cheap.

But the economic benefits of Hollywood’s arrival in the city would have been felt far beyond this wooded parish.

The Essex Film Office believes that after taking into account catering, travel and accommodation, Wake Up Dead Man has contributed more than £1.3 million to the local economy.

And now that the film has been released, it is believed that “film tourism” will increase in Epping Forest, especially given the global appeal of the series.

Erica Gilson, from the film office, says: “It’s really exciting to see the opportunities that could open up to showcase Essex to national and international travel.”

Meanwhile, Yeadon is looking forward to seeing the full film, having only seen a few individual scenes shot on location so far. Leavesden Studios in Watford was used for interior scenes.

During filming, Johnson invited her to sit in his director’s booth so she could see what the church looked like on screen.

On the last day of filming, he told her that he had met the film’s killer and invited her to guess who he was.

“That caught me on the spot and I gave him some answers, and I’ll be interested to know if he was right or not,” he says.

“I want to see what happens as much as anyone else!”

Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery will be released in select theaters and on Netflix starting December 12.