Cruzio Blog No Comments

Us

Santa Cruz Beach in "Us"

Us

Santa Cruz can be horrifying. In the movies, that is.

We know this from Hitchcock’s The Birds (based on a real event — sooty shearwaters getting disoriented over Santa Cruz!) and from (this is a great clip) Lost Boys and, much more recently, from Jordan Peele’s new thriller, Us — which looks terrifying.

Us even recruited local extras on Facebook. Oops, missed that call!

Bumblebee

transformers Bumblebee movie still

Bumblebee

And, do you simply dismiss Transformer movies out of hand, because you saw a couple of them and they were overly cheesed up?

Then you would have missed the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk’s starring role in the latest Transformers flick, Bumblebee.

Our newsletter squad doesn’t always get to the latest films but we’re assured by the much more in-the-know folks in Marketing and Business Development that Bumblebee is actually a much better movie than you’d expect. Must be Santa Cruz and the Bay Area that made the difference.

Bird Box

still from "Bird Box"

Bird Box

And there’s a third popular movie recently filmed in Santa Cruz — this one on Netflix — Bird Box. Another entry in super-scary cinema, this was partly filmed in Henry Cowell Park where the fog and the huge redwoods provided lots of moody atmosphere.

Maybe it’s our fog.

Want to see a big list of movies filmed locally? Someone put together a list on LocalWiki:

  • Vertigo (1958) … 
  • The Gnome-Mobile (1967) … 
  • The Endless Summer (1966) … 
  • My Blood Runs Cold (1965) …
  • Tilt (1979) … 
  • Escape to Witch Mountain (1975) … 
  • Harold and Maude (1971) … 
  • Killer Klowns from Outer Space (1988)
  • A Romance of the Redwoods (1917)
  • The Gnome-Mobile (1965)
  • Harold and Maude (1971)
  • Escape to Witch Mountain (1975)
  • Tilt (1978)
  • Heartbeeps (1981)
  • Shadow Riders (1982)
  • The Ugly Duckling (1982)
  • The Sting II (1983)
  • Sudden Impact (1983)
  • Creator (1985)
  • Hard Traveling (1985)
  • Alone in the T-Shirt Zone (1986)
  • Back to the Beach (1987)
  • The Lost Boys (1987)
  • Survival Game (1987)
  • Killer Klowns from Outer Space (1988)
  • Split (1989)
  • Voyage of the Heart (1991)
  • Strawberry Road (1990)
  • Out on a Limb (1992)
  • Steel Heel (1993)
  • Dangerous Minds (1995)
  • $40,000 (1996)
  • Glory Daze (1996)
  • Somebody is Waiting (1996)
  • The Aqua Girls (1998)
  • Frog and Wombat (1998)
  • Homegrown (1998)
  • Cirque de Soleil: Journey of Man (2000)
  • The Truth About Beef Jerky (2002)
  • Kinsey (2004)
  • Grave’s End (2004)
  • The Tripper (2006)
  • 10 Inch Hero (2007)
  • I Think We’re Alone Now (2008)
  • Chasing Mavericks (2011)
  • Tao of Surfing (2013)
  • House on Rodeo Gulch (2016)