There is something about horror films inspired by true stories that make them so much more terrifying. The Child Remains is one of those films.
The award-winning film tells the story of an expectant couple whose intimate weekend turns to terror when they discover their secluded country inn is a haunted maternity home where both mothers and unwanted infants and were murdered.
Starring Cannes’ Best Actress winner Suzanne Clement (Mommy), Allan Hawco (Hyena Road), Shelley Thompson (Labyrinth) and genre legend Geza Kovacs (Scanners, The Dead Zone), this tense supernatural thriller was written and directed by award-winning filmmaker Michael Melski (The Con Artist).
The Child Remains was inspired by the true-life crimes of the infamous “Butterbox Babies” murders. In 1928 in East Chester, Novia Scotia The Ideal Maternity Home, a home for unwed mothers, was opened by William Peach Young, a unordained minister, and his wife Lila. While operating from 1928 to 1945 the unlicensed home gave care to both married women and unwed mothers with the promise of finding a home for their infants. The facility had an extremely high rate of infant deaths which were later determined to be caused by murder. Any baby deemed unadoptable by the couple was starved to death and buried on the property, in the nearby field, thrown into the ocean or burned in the furnace.
The home also operated as a location for baby smuggling between Canada and the US. After being shut down the Youngs continued their practices in hotels. It was also discovered that they often told wed mothers that their infants had died so that they could keep the infant to sell. To this day some of the surviving victims and children adopted out by the couple still work together to find missing family members and mourn their lost children.
William and Lila Young
