Dexter: Original Sin Filming Locations: The Hunting Trip
The
location: The Hunting Trip
Q.
What is it supposed to be on the show?
A. A forest or natural area, possibly the Everglades.
Q.
Where is it supposed to be on the show?
A. In or near Miami, Florida.
Q.
When did we see it on the show?
A. We see it in Episode
1, of Season 1, when Harry takes Dexter out on a hunting trip in the
forest, hoping that allowing Dexter to hunt and kill large animals (such
as the wild boar they are tracking) will satisfy his urge to kill
people.
But when Dexter tells Harry that it's no longer working, that his dark urges
can't be sated by killing animals, Harry suffers a heart attack, and
Dexter has to carry him back to civilization and drive him to the hospital.
Q.
What is it actually in real life?
A. A natural forested area, with mangroves.
Q.
Where can I find it in real life?
A. I believe that this scene was filmed along the nature trails of Matheson Hammock Park, in Coral Gables, Florida.
It was the first scene they filmed when they began in production back in July of 2024.
According to Christian Slater (who plays Harry Morgan in this prequel), the shoot took place “in Miami, in the mangroves...”
The park is located at 9610 Old Cutler Road, in Coral Gables, which is about 10 miles south of downtown Miami.
In the case of
Matheson Hammock Park, the word “Hammock” doesn’t refer to the usual
suspended bed, but rather to the stretches of mangroves and hardwood
forests that are found in South Florida, and which often form a canopy
of dense tropical forest. In addition to the beach and atoll pool, the
park contains a large preserve of such old forests, complete with
walking trails.
This is the same large park where they later filmed the Bimini scene
with Debra and Gio partying on the beach, which appears in episode
8. That beach resort area, with its manmade atoll pool, is located
to the northeast of the “hammock”, and offers a radically different
ambiance. So they took advantage of that dichotomy by filming two very
different scenes at the park
Q. How the heck did you figure out where it was?
A. This had me fooled for a long time.
Since I live in Southern California and have never visited Florida,
identifying any location there is tricky. I’m not familiar with the
Miami area, so I don’t recognize many things on sight.
But it gets even worse when you’re talking about natural, undeveloped
areas. In the city, there are often obvious clues such as road signs,
business names, curb numbers, and distinctive buildings, which can help
identify the location. But when you’re out in the woods, all of that
disappears. And you either recognize the area or you don’t. And
obviously, I don’t.
I only knew of two places where they officially filmed during their 10 days in Florida:
The first was Haulover Park (where they filmed the early college scene, and a later scene involving Debra in a car with Gio). The other was Matheson Hammock Park.
Both parks are beach spots, right on the ocean’s edge, about 17 miles apart.
From a casual glance
at aerial photos, Matheson Hammock Park seemed to be a beach resort,
with a unique man-made atoll. So I kept waiting for a beach scene
to show up on the show that I could match up with the park’s unique
circular beach and its surfeit of coconut palm trees. On the surface, it
certainly didn’t seem anything like the forest we see in this hunting
scene.
So when I started looking around Florida for places where they might
have filmed this forest hunting scene, I never even considered checking
out the Matheson park.
Instead, I looked for places like botanical gardens (of which there are
several in the Miami area), or even the Everglades, but I couldn’t find a
perfect match.
Hell, at first I couldn’t even be positive that the scene was actually filmed in Florida.
Although it certainly looked like Florida, Hollywood is in the
business of often masquerading as other places, and its set designers
can work a lot of magic on local locations. There are a number of
botanical gardens here in the L.A. area that, with the addition of a few
imported prop plants, might be disguised enough to pass during a short
scene like this.
It was only after I saw a promo video for “Dexter: Original Sin”, in which Christian Slater talked about filming the hunting scene in Miami, that I was positive it was filmed there.
But after long searches filled to find the spot, I remembered that they had filmed something at Matheson Hammock Park.
So I started taking a closer look at that area and discovered that it
was bigger than I had thought. It wasn’t just the beach / atoll area. It
was much larger, covering 630 acres. And many of those acres were
natural forested areas. Plus, it was located right next to Fairchild
Botanical Gardens, which was one of the places I had previously thought
they might have filmed the scene.
It turned out that along with the modern tourist beach and a nice
marina, the park also included several “nature trails”. And when I took a
look at them online, they matched up fairly well the hunting scene,
right down to the mangroves.
Here’s one image I found.
And take a look at this StreetView of one of the trails at the park.
I suppose the name should have been a giveaway. According to Wikipedia:
“Hammock is a term used in the southeastern United States for stands of
trees, usually hardwood, that form an ecological island in a contrasting
ecosystem.” So perhaps I should have expected to find forests there.
It’s just that here in Southern California, our forests are up in the
mountains, far away from the beaches.
Now if this were in Wickiup the L.A. area, I would have simply driven to the
park and checked it out for myself, to be sure. But since that isn’t an
option, I can’t be 100% certain that is the same place, but all
evidence points to the scene having been shot in the more rugged
natural areas surrounding Matheson Hammock Park (including the fact that
they definitely filmed at the park, but no other scenes match it.)
