'Hampshire' movie more about Quincy

HAMPSHIRE -- Maybe it should have been called "Quincy: A Ghost Story."

When the Arcada Theatre in St. Charles hosts the Illinois International Film Festival this weekend, one spotlighted feature -- to be screened at 7 p.m. Saturday -- will be the 82-minute horror/comedy film "Hampshire: A Ghost Story."

The Hampshire and Burlington area has been used as a backdrop for the filming of three low-budget horror movies in the past three years. But "Hampshire: A Ghost Story" was not one of them.

Despite the similarity in genre, and the name, and the proximity of the Arcada to Hampshire, "Hampshire: A Ghost Story" was filmed entirely in Quincy, on the west side of Illinois, by young filmmakers and actors based in Quincy. And it was named not after the village, but a street in downtown Quincy.

Director-writer Chris Kelley of Quincy filmed "Hampshire" in a restaurant called the Busy Bistro, which is on Hampshire Street. Apparently, he figured "Hampshire: A Ghost Story" sounded classier than either "Bistro: A Ghost Story" or "Quincy: A Ghost Story."

If he had been filming in the village of Hampshire at the Rose Garden Restaurant on State Street, maybe the movie would have come out as "State: A Ghost Story."

Kelley modestly describes "Hampshire" as "the film that changed the history of cinema!" He told one interviewer that it's "a fun, quirky movie with creepy things going on" as its characters react to ghosts haunting a restaurant.