St Mary’s Church , Old Knebworth, Herts, UK – Jonathan Creek, The Grinning Man (2009) - Movie Locations on Waymarking.com

During the 1930s the psychic Jacques Futrelle holds a dinner party. At the party Futrelle challenges the jewish scientist Eli Mencken to stay the night in a haunted room in the house known as the Nightmare Room. Mencken doesn’t believe in ghosts and agrees to spend the night in the room. All the windows in the room are barred and locked and the guests apply four padlocks to the door. By the next day Mencken had disappeared except for a trace of ectoplasm on the bed. Over the years several other people have disappeared from the room.

In the present day Joey Ross, an investigator like Jonathan, decides to go to a party with her friend Mina. Unfortunately they have a puncture, with no spare wheel, in the middle of nowhere and it is pouring down. The caretaker of the house Metropolis just happens by and takes them back to Metropolis to stay the night until their car is fixed. Metropolis is now owned by Constance, Futrelle’s daughter. Constance has a conjuror son, Lance Gessler, and Lance has an assistant Elodie. The caretaker and Constance tell Joey and Mina about Futrelle and Mencken’s disappearance. Mina decides to take the challenge of staying in the Nightmare Room. In the morning Mina has disappeared.

Jonathan is called to investigate and initially draws a blank, as has Joey. Joey’s bedroom is immediately below the Nightmare Room and thus a trap door is ruled out. One thing Jonathan notices is that insects fall from the canopy every time he applies weight to the bed. Whilst there a bird hits the window and falls dead onto the roof below the window.

To help with the investigation Lance Gessler gives Jonathan some of Futrelle’s belongings. Dates in the papers indicate that Mencken’s disappearance had been planned in advance. A further clue is a newpaper showing a Nazi rally with the hand written words Felix Dies at the top. The riddle of who Felix was is solved when Jonathan and Joey follow Elodie and the caretaker to the nearby chapel. Joey thinks the answer might be in the crypt of the chapel, but it isn’t. However Jonathan notices that the crypt has Latin inscriptions and works out that Felix Dies is Latin for Happy Day. Obviously Futrelle was a Nazi sympathiser and that he had killed the jew, Mencken.

Jonathan and Joey attend one of Lance’s performance. After the performance it becomes apparent that Elodie is not in her dressing room and that she has been kidnapped. There is a ransom note demanding money to be placed out in the countryside. Whilst waiting for the ransom to be collected Constance tells Jonathan that, as a small girl, she saw the opening of the room when Mencken disappeared. She had seen her father slip a small white stone into his pocket, but didn’t know what it meant.

The ransom is collected but Elodie isn’t realeased. Joey decides to stow away in Lance’s props van and is soon driven to a warehouse. In the warehouse Joey sees Elodie hung up from the ceiling and Lance cutting her throat. Joey hides in a trunk and rings for Jonathan. Jonathan finds Elodie’s body wrapped in bubble wrap. When the police arrive they find Elodie’s body – except it is a manikin, not Elodie herself. Based on Jonathan’s evidence the police arrest Lance Gessler.

Back at Metropolis Jonathan talks to the caretaker, who confirms that he and Elodie had been married in the chapel, and that had infuriated Lance Gessler. Joey decides that she and Jonathan should spend the night in the Nightmare Room, but without being locked in. This they do and nothing happens. Jonathan leaves to talk to the caretaker whilst Joey takes a bath to ease her back pain. Whilst talking to the caretaker Jonathan realises that the Nightmare Room isn’t in the place he thinks it is, but in a different tower. He then realises that the bath is the key to it all. The weight of a bather tips the bath into a water tank below drowning the occupant and releasing the bath back into position. The ectoplasm in the 1930s and the insects today are just lures to get the occupant to have a bath. He and the caretaker rush to save Joey, just in time. Joey has seen the skeletons and Mina whilst down in the tank.

Lance Gessler is released by the police after a video arrives showing Elodie alive. The video was taken by tourists and contains Elodie and a man carrying today’s newspaper. Jonathan suspects a fake and goes to the house of the newspaper editor where he finds Gessler battering her to death. The editor lives to tell the tale and tells Jonathan that she provided the paper front page some time ago. Gessler is found later by the police, having committed suicide.

St Mary’s Church is the location where the caretaker and Elodie are married. Jonathan and Joey investigate the crypt and discover the use of Latin by Futrelle. Whilst the churchyard is open to the public, the inside has to be kept locked, except for servicxes, due to thefts from the church.

Movie or TV Show: Jonathan Creek - The Grinning Man Year Released or First Aired: 2,009.00 IMDB Link: [Web Link]

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