When the production of The Phantoms was announced, many Bathurst residents were angry. There was a fear the film about the “Boys in Red” was an attempt to “recreate a horrible event and make everyone relive it just so they could make a profit,” second-year STU student and former BHS student, Lindsey MacKay, says.
The Phantoms, produced by Dream Street Productions in association with CBC, follows the loss, recovery and triumph of Bathurst through the eyes of the rekindled basketball team. Seven students and a teacher were killed when the van they
were travelling in slid into the path of a transport truck.
In a year that begun with heavy hearts, the Bathurst High School Phantoms were able to win the 2009 provincial basketball championship, despite the losses to its roster. It premiered on CBC on Nov. 18 and is available online.
Mike Ricketts, a third-year STU student and a close friend of the Boys in Red, says people just wanted their story told.
“You saw everyone work together and help out in any way they could.”
While it was mostly parents angry about the production, many students were enthused by the opportunity to have a film made in Bathurst and to share the story.
The production team included the community as much as possible by filming entirely in Bathurst and including local people in the movie cast and crew.
Melissa Murphy, a first-year student at STU and recent BHS graduate, was an extra in two scenes. She says the entire experience was “surreal.”
In nearly every scene, she recognizes the people and the places. Though she was only in middle school in 2008, she saw the effect the accident had on the North Shore community of 12,000.
After seeing the film, Bathurst locals still held mixed reviews. With a film about your hometown, it’s normal to pick out mistakes, such as the exclusion of École Secondaire Népisiguit, the French high school, as pointed out by Murphy. Still, Ricketts was pleased the film was “able to show…what a community, school and team overcame.”
Ricketts believes the film “would have helped anyone who hadn’t gotten the closure they needed.”
He says the film helped heal the town. In the closing credits, it dedicates the film “to the BHS Phantoms and to the people of Bathurst and their indomitable spirit.”
MacKay says it’s only when something is gone that you realize how much it meant to you.
“The accident had a huge impact on Bathurst. People will never forget, and this film is just a testament to that. I think the boys would have liked to see how much they impacted the town, and how loved they really were.”
