Where Was Deliverance Filmed? Every Major Location Explained

The 1972 John Boorman thriller "Deliverance" is a deeply disturbing odyssey through the Georgia wilderness that haunts the minds of viewers long after the credits roll. With its scenic views of the rolling Appalachians, the perilous rapids of the Chattooga river, and the deep dark forests, "Deliverance" is both a film about the horrors men inflict upon one another and the foolishness of thinking anyone can ever truly "defeat" nature, and its setting is incredibly important to the story and the film's memorable appearance. 

"Deliverance" is at its core a survival movie, pitting man against man and man against nature as it follows four Atlanta businessmen who want to canoe down the fictional Cahulawassee River in the North Georgia wilderness before a dam is built. They visit a small mountain town where things go poorly with the locals, and end up lost in the woods when things go horribly wrong, making the movie kind of an anti-tourism ad for Georgia. But how much of the movie was actually filmed in the Peach State? Let's dig into the filming locations for "Deliverance" and see how many of those beautiful but terrifying vistas were actually in the Georgia wilds.

The majority of "Deliverance" takes place in and around the fictional Cahulawassee River, which was filmed on the Chattooga River in Rabun County, Georgia, in the northeastern part of the state near the border with North Carolina. As the movie progresses and the characters make their way further down the river, they went down the actual river as well, filming later sequences in Tallulah Gorge, near the border with South Carolina. The climactic scene in which Jon Voight's Ed climbs a rather sheer cliff-face was filmed in Tallulah Gorge, near the town of Tallulah Falls, Georgia.

Despite the horrors visited upon Ed, Lewis (Burt Reynolds), Bobby (Ned Beatty), and Drew (Ronny Cox) in the Georgia wilderness, the movie nonetheless inspired a surprising amount of tourism to the area. In a CNN report from 2012, officials in Rabun County said that nearly a quarter million people visited the rapids every year, and that those numbers got a big boost after the movie's release. Tallulah Gorge is gorgeous, but it's genuinely dangerous, as well, and sections of the river have been restricted due to a high number of rafting fatalities. When filming "Deliverance" in 1972, however, Boorman and his cast and crew took on many of the area's dangers firsthand. 

Though Boorman would turn around and film the ridiculous "Zardoz," starring Sean Connery, he really wanted to try for authenticity with "Deliverance" and had the cast and crew work on location to fully capture the intensity of the wilderness. Boorman chose to shoot "Deliverance" in sequence, starting with the town at the far north of the river and working their way down. He also had the leads do many of their own stunts, which added danger to the difficulties of just getting to the shoot each day. In a location report for American Cinematographer, Herb A. Lightman explains the peril:

"The only way to get to the bottom, where the company is shooting, is to rope your way down a 1,200' almost-vertical cliff. I wouldn't mind tackling it on skis, if the slope were snow-covered, but it's simply very muddy and I have visions of losing my grip on the rope and ending up as a mud-pie at the bottom. [...] I pity the cast and crew members who have to do this act twice a day, but I'm informed that they have been selected as much for their physical agility as for technical skill. Even so, there have been accidents, though no fatalities as yet."

One such accident happened when Reynolds slid down a waterfall, landing directly on his tailbone and shattering it, though Boorman believed that having the actors face some of the dangers head-on made for better action. There was one thing that wasn't authentic in "Deliverance," however, and that's the little Georgia town they visit in the very beginning — it was filmed in North Carolina!

In the beginning of the film, the city slickers pull into a little run-down town that's supposed to be in north Georgia, but in reality it was filmed in North Carolina (near the Georgia border). The town sequence where a boy named Lonnie (local teen Billy Redden) plays banjo and Drew starts playing "Duelling Banjos" with him on his guitar was filmed in Sylva, North Carolina. The various extras playing the townsfolk were mostly locals, and allegedly weren't told how they were going to be portrayed in the final film, adding another layer to Boorman's desire for authenticity even if he fudged the geography a little. 

"Deliverance" is among the best wilderness horror films of all time, and a big part of that is the beauty and brutality of the wilderness that it was filmed in.