OTTAWA?A Canadian filmmaker has been charged in a murder plot eerily similar to one of his horror movies, media said Monday.

Mark Twitchell, 29, was charged Saturday with the murder of Johnny Altinger in what police believe is a case of life imitating art.

He was to appear in court Monday.

Police believe the victim was lured on October 10 to a garage where Twitchell made movies on the promise of a date with a woman he had met online.

They seized a script written by Twitchell about a killer who lured a man to his death under similar circumstances.

"Mr. Altinger had e-mailed a friend the directions where he was told to go to and the friend kept that e-mail and that's the only reason we found that garage," Detective Mark Anstey of the Edmonton Police Service, told public broadcaster CBC.

Twitchell's "film was about luring a fellow from the Internet, duct-taping him to a chair, killing him and cutting him," he said.

Police found no body, but collected forensic evidence.

They are also looking for another man believed to have escaped from the garage a week before Altinger went missing. Witnesses told police he was attacked by a man in a hockey mask as he fled.