My love for filming locations started with wanting to see a few iconic horror movie houses, and one that was always on my list was the Delta Alpha Kappa sorority house from the much-hated Black Christmas remake. I don’t care what anyone says – I love this movie. It’s a fun, colorful, gory, Christmas kill-fest with a great cast. But where was the house?
Online searches yielded little information other than that filming took place in Vancouver. I once asked around on Instagram and was told it was built on a soundstage so I let it go for a while. But then I rewatched the special features on the DVD and while they did film the interiors of the house on a set, it showed a couple shots of the crew filming in front of what looked like a real house to me. A-ha! The search was on.
Somehow, someway, 15+ pages into Google search results, I found someone’s personal blog that contained a post from February of 2006. I cannot for the life of me find this blog again to credit it, but it was from a Vancouver local who had posted one picture of the house covered in fake snow for the shoot and a throwaway sentence that it was for the filming of Black Christmas. It didn’t give the exact location, but the same post featured a couple of other pictures that did have some surrounding street names and that gave me an area to search. Armed with a general area and as many pictures of the house as I could possibly find, I set out searching on Google Maps and it actually didn’t take all that long!
Known as the Ramsay House, it was built in 1912 and is a City of Vancouver Heritage Building. The house right next door was built sometime in the mid-2010’s, and part of the porch of the Ramsay House was torn down to fit it in. I visited in April, but they still had Christmas lights up which I absolutely loved.
Movie Location: Delta Alpha Kappa Sorority House / Lenz House
Filming Location: The Ramsay House
1196 W 59th Ave., Vancouver, BC
Date of Photos: April 2022
Movie Location: Clark Sanitarium
Filming Location: Riverview Hospital, East Lawn Building
2601 Lougheed Hwy., Coquitlam, BC
Date of Photos: April 2022
