Santa Cruz (TAN): Horror film “Us” is drawing tourists in droves to seaside park Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk.
It was the film ‘The Lost Boys’ filmed 30 years ago in Santa Cruz that first attracted tourists to the beach town. That was a vampire movie. There are still walking tours of the sights. And the Boardwalk still plays it to great fanfare once a year.
“In fact, Jordan Peele was so inspired by The Lost Boys which filmed here in 1987 that he promised himself if he ever became a director, he would come back to Santa Cruz and make a movie. And he did,” Christina Glynn with the Santa Cruz County Film Commission was quoted as saying by Fox KTVU.
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The film has the social media abuzz with people saying they’re too scared to visit, or will never look at Santa Cruz the same way again. However, the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk is filled with people who came because of the movie.
“We saw ‘Us’ on Friday and then I didn’t realize that it was filmed in Santa Cruz. So then we were like we have to stop by the boardwalk to check it out… see if we can find the underground tunnels and everything like that,” Mike Medina of Fremont told Fox KTVU.
Cassandra Medina added: “When I think about Santa Cruz, I still think it’s a lot of fun. I am looking for certain things I’ve seen in the film like we were headed down to where the first scene is.”
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‘Us’ was filmed over 8 days last year and brought about a million dollars to the local economy.
But Santa Cruz officials expect the real benefit will be long a long term boost to tourism, says Fox KTVU.
Kris Reyes of the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk said: “We know the vast majority of our guests are excited about this movie. They recognize that the horror content in it is fantasy and not real. And they love coming down here and seeing where it was filmed. So on the whole, this is a really popular and positive thing for us.”
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