Cannes film festivities include The Scarehouse from Windsor

A Windsor film is heading to the world famous Cannes Film Festival — sort of.

The Scarehouse was shot entirely in Windsor. It was written and directed by Windsor's Gavin Michael Booth. The film will be part of the Marché du Film, which coincides with the Cannes event.

It isn't nearly as glitzy as the festival itself. But it's a meeting place for movie industry insiders, like producers, film distributors, sales agents.

Although The Scarehouse will be distributed in Canada and in the U.S., through Universal Pictures, Booth is hoping to find a worldwide distributor.

"It means we stand a chance that we have the film released all around the world," Booth said of being part of Marché du Film.

The Scarehouse is the young director's fifth film. It's his first horror film and most expensive production to date.

"I grew up loving horror movies," said Booth.

He and friend once spent a summer renting horror movies "A through Z" from an Amherstburg video store.

"I’ve been a huge fan for years. But there’s never been the right time or idea come up," he said.

That was until he walked through his friend's annual haunted house in downtown Windsor.

Sean Lippert runs the Scarehouse haunted house every year on Ouellette Avenue.

"I was walking through there while he was setting up a few years ago and I thought, 'I’d like to make a movie here,'" Booth said. "So that’s naturally where I stole the name from."

Booth describes the film as "Mean Girls meets Saw."

Two college girls open a Halloween fun house the night before Halloween "to get revenge against sorority sisters."

Booth said the audience can expect torture scenes and karate fights.

The film was made for $273,000.

"We were the weekly catering budget for The Avengers," Booth joked.

Booth said he was looking for cheap or free space to shoot the film.

Still, in terms of In terms of budget, scope of cast, technical proficiency and makeup, he said the film is "leaps and bounds beyond what we’ve done before."

Booth said the entire downtown core helped him and the crew, from catering to discounted hardware. Booth is grateful for all the help and wants to give back.

"We’re going to do something huge for Windsor," Booth said. "We’re going to give back a huge a premiere to the city that helped us most."