The striking UK locations that masqueraded as upstate New York in Knives Out: Wake Up Dead Man

Although the film is set in the fictional town of Chimney Rock, the church at the centre of the story is very real.

In the movie, Father Jud Duplenticy (Josh O'Connor) joins a new parish led by the controversial Monsignor Jefferson Wicks. The fictional church, named Our Lady of Perpetual Fortitude, is the location of the film's central crime, but in reality, the church is Holy Innocents Church at High Beach, located in Epping Forest, Essex.

The Grade II-listed building played a major role in the production, with its vicar and long-time Knives Out fan, Reverend Jane Yeadon, heavily involved throughout filming. So committed was she to protecting the historic site that Jane was written into the production contract, allowing her to remain on set to oversee the safety of the 19th-century building and its grounds.

Speaking of the Essex location, production designer Rick Heinrichs explained it was "devilishly hard to find a church [in England] that didn't look at least several centuries too old for a US church." 

He added: "In the research of American churches though, I did find a tradition of neo-Gothic/Victorian age, mid-19-century American churches that overlapped with a few of the candidate UK churches that we had identified."

Explaining why Holy Innocents ultimately won out, Rick said: "Besides checking the plausibility box, it had a storybook-like charm in its arboreal setting within an old graveyard that seemed to support Rian's [Johnson, the film's director] intent."

Like many old churches in England, Holy Innocents usually hosts a congregation of around 60 people. As a result, while the church's exterior appears extensively on screen, much of what viewers see inside was carefully recreated on a soundstage to preserve the historic building.

Meanwhile, the real interior of the church was used as a green room for the all-star cast, which includes Glenn Close, Mila Kunis, Kerry Washington and Andrew Scott.

Location manager Rachel Hyde also revealed that nearly every corner of the surrounding graveyard and roads were used during production.

"The whole of London gets so busy with filming nowadays because there is so much of it, so it is great to use the Home Counties more and more," she told the BBC. 

As well as spotlighting the picturesque 1873 church and its woodland surroundings, the Essex Film Office estimates that the film has contributed more than £1.3m to the local economy. With fans already planning visits to the now-famous location, that figure is expected to rise.

Meanwhile, Vera Draven's (Kerry Washington) house was filmed on an estate in Guildford, Surrey, while the grand (if not seriously creepy) Wicks mausoleum and groundskeeper's cabin were specially constructed in Winterfold Forest in Surrey Hills.