Movie Review: The Innkeepers (2011)
     So anyone who has known me for very long knows that I'm a BIG fan of horror movies. I have been ever since I was little and saw "Horror of Dracula" on TV. But let me tell you, being a horror movie fan is NOT easy. Despite some critical strides forward, horror remains one of the least respected genres in film. For some people (especially film critics), it's only a little bit above porn as a genre. And the films don't always make it easy, either. There are a lot of bad horror films out there and wading through those to find the gems can be a frustrating task. And when you find a gem, you sometimes worry that you're mistaking something that's not very good as great, just because it doesn't suck as badly as the last 10 horror films you saw. It's also possible to have the opposite reaction. I've heard horror fans tear apart a perfectly fine film because it didn't live up to their expectations of what "horror" is supposed to be. This (I think) is simply because a horror film, not unlike a comedy, won't work for everyone. We all tend to have a different idea of what's scary, just like we all tend to laugh at different things. I think that "The Blair Witch Project" and "Ringu" are scary, but I know there are people out there who don't. I'm not a fan of the films of Rob Zombie (or Adam Sandler), but they make money, so somebody must like them, right?
     All this is my kind of long winded way of introducing a review of "The Innkeepers", the new film by director Ti West. This movie is not going to be for all tastes. Unlike a lot of the big budget horror remakes out there, it's a slow build without a lot of in-your-face gore effects, pointless jump scares, or hyper-kinetic editing. It's a quiet film with a small cast, set in one location and, for much of the time, very little happens. The premise is simple: two desk clerks for the hotel The Yankee Pedlar are spending the closing weekend trying to find out if the hotel is actually haunted. Just about every hotel has a ghost and this one has Madeline O'Malley, a woman who hung herself in her room after being stood up on her wedding day by her fiance. Outside of a couple of guests, the desk clerks are the only people in the hotel, so now seems the perfect time to find out if the ghost is real. Since this is a horror film, we're pretty sure there really is a ghost, but the film isn't interested in telling us right away. Instead, West spends his time building his characters and having them engage in a low-key kind of comedy built around the boredom their job induces. They play tricks on each other, bitch about the guests, get drunk, and, when they can't think of anything else to do, play around with the ghost-hunting equipment. This is not a film for people who demand a scare scene (or gore effect) every ten minutes.
     During the course of the film, the female desk clerk, Claire (played by Sara Paxton), repeatedly asks why the ghost of Madeline O'Malley hasn't moved on, why she's chosen to stay at the hotel. The same question could be applied to Claire herself. Claire is a twenty-something who is currently drifting aimlessly through her life. When one of the few guests at the hotel, an actress-turned-New-Age-psychic (played by Kelly McGillis), asks Claire what she does, Claire is stuck for an answer. Her job is the only thing she has. Her male counterpart Luke (played by Pat Healy) isn't much better. His sole driving passion seems to be the paranormal website he's trying to put up about The Yankee Pedlar. That and being an arrogant jerk to the hotels guests. These aren't especially likable characters and its mainly due to the excellent performances of the lead actors that we remain sympathetic to them, especially once things start taking a turn for the worse.
     This is Ti West's second film, following his debut picture "The House of the Devil". That film was disliked intensely by a number of people, mainly because of the slow pace West employed during the suspense-building middle section of the film. "The Innkeepers" is unlikely to win those people over, since he once again chooses to use a leisurely pace that will probably frustrate them just as much. And, in the end, the film doesn't go anywhere that surprising. It's a simple ghost story, but that's no bad thing. The acting is very good, the story compelling, and the film delivers the scares it has well. And the film has a touch of melancholy to it, a sadness about how people drift through life, drawn to places that they attach themselves to, sometimes because they can't think of anything better to do, sometimes because they have no choice. Ghosts may be the saddest of all monsters, if we can even call them monsters. They are trapped in places, unable to move on, forced to watch others do the one thing they can't do: live. Maybe it's no wonder some of them would be just angry enough to want someone, especially someone wasting their own life, to join them.