Trailer: Ghosts reside at a former maternity home in The Child Remains

Last Updated on July 30, 2021

Currently making the festival rounds, and winning awards while doing so, is writer/director Michael Melski's Canadian horror film THE CHILD REMAINS, a haunted house story inspired by true events.

Starring Suzanne Clement, Allan Hawco, Shelley Thompson, Geza Kovacs, Lesley Smith, Glenn Lefchak, Lee J. Campbell, Martha Irving, and Rena Kossatz, THE CHILD REMAINS has the following synopsis: 

An expectant couple’s intimate weekend turns to terror when they discover their secluded country inn is a haunted maternity home where unwanted infants and mothers were murdered. 

The story of the "Butterbox Babies" is the true crime case that inspired the film. The crimes occurred at a maternity home in Nova Scotia from the late 1920s through the mid-'40s and involved infants deemed unadoptable being starved to death, the corpses often being buried in grocery crates called butter boxes.

That's certainly the sort of atrocity you would expect could stir up a haunting. While building a supernatural thriller out of that idea, Melski also wanted to pay tribute to story- and character-driven movies like THE SHINING, THE EXORCIST, and THE CHANGELING.

The trailer for THE CHILD REMAINS can be seen below. As the film continues to screen at festivals, the filmmakers are planning to get it into theatres in the U.S. and Canada sometime next year.