When Luke Hutchie and Matthew Finlan began mapping out purportedly haunted locations to feature in their new CBC series Ghosting, which premiered Friday on Gem, both knew Niagara-on-the-Lake’s Olde Angel Inn had to be one of them.
Hutchie, 27, and Finlan, 29, are executive producers and the stars of the new unscripted comedy in collaboration with Blue Ant Studios. The two actors, both best known for their work in the horror genre, visit eight different spooky locations across Ontario on their quest to find out if they are truly haunted, bringing along a different friend for each episode.
The idea for the program came to them following a trip the pair made with their friend, fellow actor Bukola Ayoka (Robyn Hood), to a movie premiere in San Francisco. While there, Hutchie realized that the purportedly haunted Alcatraz prison was across the shore. He became adamant that they get there for a visit.
“We convinced this guy with a rickety wooden boat to take us across, but we only got halfway there before he had to turn back,” Hutchie recalls. “We got so close I could have swam there. The boat guy, his name was Skipper, he wouldn’t let me. He totally hated us.”
“Once we got back to shore,” Finlan says, “we realized that it would be quite entertaining to watch two actors in the horror realm who have no business being in Alcatraz trying to decipher whether or not it was haunted. The idea was so good that it stuck with us.”
When they returned to Toronto, Hutchie, who produced and starred in his own vampire series called EZRA for OUTtv, and Finlan, who first met Hutchie on the set of that show, sat down and expanded on the idea. To their surprise, CBC picked it up for eight episodes.
“Their website said they do not accept paranormal shows,” laughs Finlan. “But we stuck to our guns because we felt this was much more than just a paranormal show.”
“Because this show is really more of an unscripted comedy that touches on the paranormal,” Hutchie adds. “And it’s celebrity-driven. When CBC started this process with us it was imperative that we had their support, that they believed in the show. I think they really understand the power of streaming, and all the content being created right here in Canada.”
Hutchie and Finlan created a wish list of young guests, including Ayoka, whom they wanted to invite on as guests. And they Googled the most haunted places in Canada, comparing notes to whittle down their list of sites. But they didn’t have to rely on a search to find out about the Olde Angel Inn and its haunted reputation.
We stuck to our guns because we felt this was much more than just a paranormal show
Hutchie grew up in Niagara Falls, graduating from A.N. Myer Secondary School in 2014. And Peterborough, Ontario native Finlan spent 2016 living in the Chautauqua neighbourhood and appearing in the Shaw Festival’s A Woman of No Importance and Engaged.
“Luke and I came with a loaded history attached to Niagara-on-the-Lake,” says Finlan. “There’s a slew of haunted places there. We actually considered a number of different locations there.”
“I love the story about the ghost of the woman (Molly McGuire) who stands at the window at the the Prince of Wales Hotel,” adds Hutchie. “But the Olde Angel Inn is really old. It has that look that really sells you the history. Everybody knows about the guy in the barrel (Captain Colin Swayze). I don’t even know where I learned it, it’s such common folklore.”
The Merrill House in Picton is featured in episode one of Ghosting, while the results of September’s three days of production in NOTL appear in episode two. Other installments feature Castle Kilbride in Baden, Cornwall’s SDG Jail, the McDonald Log Cabin in Simcoe County, Hamilton’s Auchmar Mansion, the Wellington County Poorhouse and the Orillia Opera House. All have their own legends and rumours of paranormal activity.
The guest for the Olde Angel Inn episode is Zoé de Grand’Maison, who played Evelyn Evernever on CW’s Riverdale and Gracie Johanssen on BBC America’s sci-fi thriller Orphan Black.
“She brought a great deal of levity to the episode,” Hutchie says. “We’re dealing with a story about heartbreak and the War of 1812, and she was able to provide an audience point of view, as she was learning the story for the first time.”
“This was the only episode where Luke and I knew much about the location before we got there,” says Finlan. “But I had never been to the rooms upstairs or to the cellar. Normally we try to go in knowing as little as possible to allow the most to happen.”
“And our guests didn’t even know where we were taking them,” laughs Hutchie. “We wouldn’t tell them until maybe an hour before we got there. They had this false trust. It was always so funny once we got there.”
They arrive with the paranormal equipment familiar to fans of such programs. That includes a REM pod, an EMF (electromagnetic field) meter, a ouija board and other devices that Finlan, a self-professed paranormal program geek, chose for each site based on the type of activity they expected.
Each episode includes a bit of history about the location and its legends. Hutchie plays the skeptical foil to Finlan’s believer. Their high-energy back-and-forth is hilarious and, yes, sometimes spooky, as the pair work with their guest to come to a conclusion as to whether or not the building is indeed haunted.
Their conclusion about the Olde Angel Inn? They’re keeping the results of their findings under wraps until January 26, when all eight episodes of Ghosting premiere on the streaming service CBC Gem.
“The Olde Angel was definitely chaotic, such a wild ride with many ups and downs,” Hutchie says. “I think this episode does a great job in explaining history in a very fun and bizarre way, definitely not like this before.”
