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| A scene from 'Winchester.' (Lionsgate) |
The legendary Winchester Mystery House is finally getting ready for its closeup.
On the eve of making its big-screen debut in “Winchester,” the Bay Area’s most famous haunted house, long a tourist magnet with hundreds of thousands visiting the 161-room mansion every year, is a buzzing hive of cinematic activity. There are parties being thrown, screenings being held, a new exhibit of costumes from the $3.5 million movie starring Oscar winner Helen Mirren being displayed and a shiver of excitement running through guests and staff alike. For once, the goosebumps at this venerable haunt have nothing to do with ghosts.
“We’re very excited about this,” says general manager Walter Magnuson, standing in the bustling gift shop, which is decked out with eerie movie posters. “It’s hard to believe it’s really happening.”
Built by eccentric rifle heiress Sarah L. Winchester in the late 1800s, the byzantine house has been featured in countless TV shows and even a Broadway-style musical. But now the maze-like manse, with its famous doors that lead to nowhere and stairways that lead to ceilings, is also about to become a Hollywood star. San Jose’s original monster home plays a leading role in the Lionsgate/CBS film that wafts into theaters Feb. 2.
Written and directed by Michael and Peter Spierig, the movie was partially shot on location in San Jose, closing the city’s biggest tourist attraction for several days last year. Being immersed in the chaos of a film shoot was a hoot for those who work at the house. Half a dozen staff members even got to make their movie debuts as extras in the film.
“It was a lot of fun for me,” says Homero Lopez, a guide who was cast as one of Sarah’s tireless carpenters. “It was really cool getting to see how much goes into shooting one scene, the technical aspects of making a movie. That was really something.”
Lopez says it took several hours to shoot his scenes, not to mention the time spent getting into period costume and makeup. He can’t wait to see if he ended up on the cutting room floor or in the spotlight.
Officials say that there has already been an uptick in attendance at the house and they believe the release of the movie will generate even more interest in the house.
“We are already well known but this movie will raise the profile of the house even higher,” says Magnuson. “There will be a halo effect.”
Jessica Gidlund, a tour dispatcher who helped the film crew navigate the house’s 2,000 doors, 10,000 windows, 40 stairways and 13 bathrooms, says that many visitors seem just as pumped for the movie as she is.
“We’ve never had something like this before,” she says. “The best part is that it’s not the staff that’s excited but the whole community is looking forward to it.”
There is also hope the movie generates interest in the city at large as more than just a place to do high-tech business but also a place to steep in history and culture.
“It should be good for San Jose … Akin to ‘Lady Bird’ and Sacramento, you can’t go wrong when paying homage to a place with a feature-length film,” says Rick Jensen of the Downtown Association.
According to the lore that the film draws upon, a medium told Winchester that the only way to elude the ghosts that haunted her, the souls that perished at the hands of the Winchester rifle, was to outwit them through architecture. With her immense wealth and engineering prowess, she made sure that construction on the 24,000-square-foot house never stopped. Building forged on 24 hours a day for 38 years until her death in 1922.
“As a peaceful, gentle soul, she felt the weight of her fortune greatly, the responsibility for all that death and destruction,” as Mirren put it during last year’s filming at the house, “That was her burden.”
While conventional wisdom has always maintained that Winchester was mentally unhinged, stricken with grief over the death of her husband and baby, there are those who believe that the spirits are indeed real.
Over the years many have reported glimpsing a shadowy woman in black floating through the hallways while others have smelled an overwhelming scent of roses, reportedly a beloved fragrance of Winchester’s.
“If you are here alone, especially at night, you can feel the house breathing around you,” notes Jacob Williams, marketing coordinator for the house, who says he has been tapped on the shoulder only to turn around and realize no one was there.
So how does the spirit world feel about making its big-screen debut?
“We had a psychic here recently who reported that Sarah was here and she was happy that people were still enjoying the house she built,” says Magnuson.
And what if the film turns out to be cursed at the box office? “Winchester” is not being screened for critics, which can be a bad omen for a film. Would a flop mar the legend of the house?
Magnuson shrugs off such concerns, confident the mystique of the house will live on no matter what.
“We’re already on a lot of people’s bucket lists,” says Magnuson, “This is a state landmark.”
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