Diksha Sundriyal
‘Midnight Special’ is a sci-fi drama that begins with the kidnapping of a child and ends on a note that leads the audience to have a new understanding of everything around them. The film balances its otherworldly plotlines with the emotional backing of a father’s love for his son. It delivers some great visuals and uses its surroundings aptly to focus on the dangers that the characters are running from. If you want to know where ‘Midnight Special’ has been filmed, here’s the answer.
Midnight Special Filming Locations
‘Midnight Special’ follows the story of a father who is on the run from the authorities as well as a cult to save his son, who has extraordinary abilities. He flees from one place to another, seeking shelter for the day and moving around only at night. So much movement in the film required a number of filming locations for it. Several locations in New Mexico, Mississippi, and Florida are featured in the film. Louisiana serves as the primary filming location.
Louisiana, New Orleans
All the running around to save Alton required the production of ‘Midnight Special’ to find very specific locations to cater to the plot. They found most of them in Louisiana. A lot of scenes were filmed on location in New Orleans. In one part of the film, Lucas, Roy, and Alton stop at a gas station, where Alton leads to a satellite crash. This scene was filmed on location in Reserve. The motel where Roy, Lucas, and Sarah are attacked and Alton is taken away by the Ranch was filmed in Slidell. This is also where the scenes with Elden’s house were filmed.
At the beginning of the film, we find the Ranch congregation disrupted by the FBI, which is followed by intense interviews. The interior scenes were filmed in Folsom. Some of the road scenes, when Alton and his father are on the run from the authorities and the cult, were filmed at Big Branch Marsh National Wildlife Refuge in Lacombe. The scene under the bridge was filmed at Highway 90 White Kitchen Landing in Slidell.
New Mexico
Lucas and Roy cross several state lines in order to get Alton where he is meant to be. Some part of the story lands them in west Texas. In reality, these scenes were filmed in New Mexico. The exteriors of the Ranch were filmed in Mountainair.
Mississippi
While Louisiana provided a lot of good locations to ‘Midnight Special’, director Jeff Nichols was very specific about every location that would find its place in the frames of the film. The story opens with Lucas, Roy, and Alton hiding out in a motel. For the filming of this scene, the crew scoured for the perfect location in Louisiana but eventually found the one to their taste in Mississippi. Similarly, a roadblock scene was filmed at Tradition Parkway in Biloxi because it fit in with the story. For the air force base, the crew used the surroundings of Stennis International Airport in Kiln.
Florida
‘Midnight Special’ ends with Alton and Sarah arriving at the coordinates that Alton had received at the start of the journey. This is where he finds the world that he belongs to, in a brief window of which, others also get a peek into it. This scene was filmed at St. Marks National Wildlife Refuge in Florida.
Read More: Midnight Special Ending, Explained
