Where was Knives Out filmed?

You can’t expect a man to become an inhumanly wealthy, best-selling murder mystery novelist without a flair for the theatrical, and Harlan Thrombey delivers. After his nurse, Marta, discovers she has overdosed him with morphine and both think his death is imminent, Thrombey comes up with a plan to save Marta at his own peril.

In addition to giving a glimpse at how his Clue-loving mind works, viewers also discover that Harlan is a kind man, even though there’s no love lost for most of his conniving, dysfunctional family.

“Your mom is still undocumented, and if this is your fault, she’ll be found out and at best deported and your family will be broken,” Harlan says. “But we’re not going to let that happen, are we?”

And thus, Harlan lays out an elaborate plan to stage his own suicide (or murder?) to cover for Marta, who, it turns out, didn’t actually make a mistake and overdose him in the first place.

This scene was filmed at the Ames Mansion, part of Borderland State Park in Easton, Massachusetts, just south of Boston. Tours are available from the Friends of Borderland organization on a daily basis. The tour covers the history of the house itself with few, if any, references to Knives Out, but you’ll notice each and every room as you walk through the three-storey estate.

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“All my assets, both liquid and otherwise, I leave in their entirety to… Marta Cabrera,” says Harlan’s executor at the beginning of the scene.

And with that, it becomes clear that every member of the Thrombey family, as high-class and socially-connected as they are, are nothing but money-grubbing, ungrateful kids and grandkids.

All except for Ransom, it seems, whose cryptic smile when Marta’s name is read over and over as the sole inheritor is the only real surprise in the scene. As he begins to laugh and eventually leaves the room, all hell breaks loose between the gathered family, with more than one loudly accusing Marta of having a sexual relationship with Harlan.

As the family descends on Marta, with many different versions of the good cop/bad cop dynamic, Ransom arrives and whisks Marta away, telling the bickering family members that it (being left out of the will) was the best thing to happen to all of them.

While the will reading scene occurred in the Ames Mansion along with most of the other interior scenes, Marta’s great escape at the hands of Ransom was filmed at the Hill Hurst mansion in Hunnewell Estates, Natick. The Gothic revival mansion was only used for exterior shots, and is a private home in a gated community. It is not open to the public.

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One of the many amusing idiosyncracies in Knives Out is Marta’s apparent inability to lie without spilling her guts. Literally.

“How to put this delicately,” says Blanc, “you have a regurgitive reaction to mistruthing.”

After Marta answers in the affirmative, Blanc decides to test this bizarre reaction by asking her to answer a question about other members of the Thrombey family, in order to see what kind of information Harlan may have revealed to her.

When asked if Richard, Ransom’s father, was having an affair, Marta thinks back to the day when Harlan showed her evidence of the transgression. She answers no, but then quickly runs to the back of the deck to throw up, confirming both pieces of information for Blanc.

This scene was filmed at the Ames Mansion.

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Dubbed the “dumbest car chase scene of all time,” Marta and Ransom lead Detective Blanc and his officers on a medium-speed chase down a rural highway and into town.

After going to the medical examiner’s office and discovering that it was burned down the night before, Marta and Ransom turn and run when they’re seen by Blanc. Driving her tiny Hyundai, Marta doesn’t have the speed to really run from the police vehicles, which Blanc emphasizes by pulling up beside her and motioning for her to answer her cell phone.

Panicked, she looks over at Ransom and asks if he regrets helping her yet. In yet another response that shows he feels no loyalty to his own family, Ransom simply replies, “I regret not taking the Beamer.”

Realizing she’s going to be caught soon, Marta careens through a series of back alleys too small for the large police vehicles to fit through, eventually losing them and pulling over into an abandoned parking lot.

How to get there: The car chase scene travels through downtown Maynard, a small town about 20 miles west of Boston. You’ll recognize many of the historic buildings and narrow streets of the small bedroom community.

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After receiving a blackmail letter containing Harlan’s toxicology report – which would have shown the excessive amount of morphine Marta thought she dosed him with – Marta goes to meet the blackmailer at John’s Cleaners and Tuxedos.

When she gets there, she makes an unexpected discovery. The blackmailer turns out to be Fran, Harlan’s supposedly loyal housekeeper. At first, Marta tries to help her friend, discovering that she’s been drugged with morphine and is close to death.

She takes a copy of the toxicology report from Fran’s hand before the housekeeper uses her last breath to tell Marta, “It was you. You did this.”

It’s not clear whether she’s talking about her own death or Harlan’s, but Marta dials 9-1-1 and leaves as Fran dies alone in the abandoned laundry.

John’s Cleaners, the abandoned laundry where Fran is set to blackmail Harlan’s killer, is located in Maynard, near where the car chase scene passed through. It’s located at 127 Main Street, although you’ll have to go around to the back of the building if you want to get a shot of the exterior.

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In one of Knives Out’s few action scenes, the long-awaited plot twist jumps out of the shadows and startles the audience, although it was probably obvious the entire time for observant viewers. While standing with Blanc, Ransom and the other police officers, Marta takes a call and subsequently reveals that Fran is alive and expected to recover.

It’s up to the audience to wonder whether Marta really received a call from someone posing as a doctor and is convinced that Fran will be fine, or if she’s finally wrestled control of her ability to lie from her stomach.

Either way, upon hearing that Fran will be okay and is willing to give a statement to police, Ransom comes clean and admits that he tried to kill Fran. The scene features on of the most amusing lines in the entire film, when Ransom yells at Blanc, “Shut up with your Kentucky-fried, Foghorn Leghorn-drawl!”

After confessing to arson and attempted murder, the gig is up when Marta vomits right into Ransom’s face.

Realizing he’s just been recorded confessing to murder, Ransom decided to take matters into his own hands one last time, grabbing a knife from Harlan’s ostentatious Iron Throne-esque display and lunging at Marta. The knife isn’t real, however – it turns out to be a retractable prop knife, and Ransom is hauled off by police for arson, Fran’s murder and the attempted murder of Marta.

This scene takes place n Harlan’s office, which was custom-built on a sound stage to create just the right atmosphere.

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