A creepy indie horror film shot inside Manly's old quarantine station under the direction of a Wollongong filmmaker has been given a cinema berth.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
The Quarantine Hauntings tells the story of a visitor to the station who is possessed by "the girl in the pink dress".
The girl is an urban legend and a topic of fascination on blogs, social media and the TV show Ghost Hunters International.
Co-director and co-writer Arnold Perez said the film's creators enlisted a psychic medium to reach out to the girl in the lead-up to filming, and claim the woman was successful in making contact.
The girl revealed she had been murdered by her doctor, Mr Perez said.
"I'd be lying if I said I wasn't kind of spooked at some of what we saw [behind the scenes]," Mr Perez said.
"A lot of cast and crew had a lot of strange experiences. We were at the hospital and batteries started going out - but would work again as soon as we left.
"There was footage lost without explanation.
"The medium was pulled into a room. Another time, I was following [the medium] down these stairs, it was pitch black and she started saying she could see the ghost of a boy.
"You try to put it at the back of your mind."
From the 1830s to 1984, migrant ships arriving in Sydney with suspected contagious passengers would stop at the North Head station and offload them.
The site includes a "gravedigger's cottage" and - reputedly - several unmarked graves.
Filmmakers believed euthanasia was common at the site.
Mr Perez, a 25-year-old St Joseph's College graduate, drew on his love of historical and modern horror film techniques to flavour the film, which was created on a $60,000 budget.
It has been picked up for screening at selected Hoyts cinemas - although Illawarra cinemagoers would have to use the cinema's "demand it" program to bring it here, details of which are on The Quarantine Hauntings movie website.
Real-life footage gathered from the site during the filming will be used in a separate documentary project about Australia's most haunted locations.