The Innkeepers (2011)

Best movie of this year hands down!

Very well executed

Terrible acting, screenplay and direction.

It's complicated... I really like the directing, acting and writing but, there are issues with the way it's shot that I just can't deny. As much as I love the storytelling and the fantastic performance but, there are also certain scenes that didn't need to exist.

I know that there's a hint of "comedy" in this movie, but I see people here comparing this to Poltergeist, Suspiria, or John Carpenter movies...and it really makes me wonder if they've actually seen any of those movies. This is one of the saddest excuses for a horror movie I've ever seen. I like Ti West sometimes, but he's pretty hit or miss and this is a HUGE miss. The main characters are so pathetic and cringey that I legitimately can't tell if West thought their banter was actually funny or if their characters were supposed to be borderline autistic. It was painful to sit through their awkward interactions that make up most of the film, especially when the only thing interrupting them most of the time was a bunch of cheap fakeout jump scares. Listen kids, spooky music playing to make you think somethings going to happen and then SURPRISE IT'S JUST A BIRD is NOT psychological horror. There's nothing intelligent about a movie that wastes your time with cheap, generic tricks because it doesn't have anything to actually say (and I'm giving a HUGE stink eye to the kid in the reviews here that calls this an intelligent movie because it makes a GHOSTBUSTERS REFERENCE). The slightest hint of suspense finally does creep in at the end, but we're talking about something like 10 minutes out of 100, and they're not even a good 10 minutes. The payoff for all the waiting is insultingly pathetic and telegraphed harder than you would believe possible. This is a horror movie for people with overactive imaginations that are too scared to watch real horror movies and think those terrible ghost hunter reality shows are scary, and honestly this movie feels almost like an intentional stab at those kind of people (though none of them seem to be noticing), but the plot and its pacing are so terrible that it doesn't much matter whether it is or not. If you're the kind of person that gets themselves scared just sitting in the dark and hearing bumps in the night, then you might be able to delude yourself into finding some genuine frights here, but really, you can come up with a scarier story on your own just sitting in the dark than what you're actually handed here.I give it a generous 2 simply because it was at least competently filmed and I've technically seen worse, but those are the only remotely positive things I can say about it.

The Innkeepers, directed by Ti West, came a couple years after The House of the Devil, which I recently reviewed, and I have to say… in comparison, it's a much weaker film. It takes place (and was filmed in) the real-life Yankee Pedlar Inn in Torrington, Connecticut, which is supposed to actually be haunted… so that was certainly a cool touch. But, overall, I feel like it fell short.It follows Claire (Sara Paxton) and Luke (Pat Healy), two apathetic twenty-somethings drifting their way through the last weekend of business for the inn they work at part- time. They've taken to filling the long, boring hours of watching the front desk with amateur ghost hunting, and they find out that rumors of the inn being haunted may be more true than they realize…** SPOILERS! **Ti West LOVES the concept of a super slow build-up, which I respect and actually admire. I don't think films need to be chock full of action from the first scene, and I actually appreciate the chance to get to know the characters more deeply and to get a feel for the setting, the history, the back story, etc, especially in a movie like this where the setting is almost a character in itself.While I really enjoyed Claire and Luke (more so Claire, she was goddamn adorable — I never thought I could enjoy a several minute long scene of someone trying to throw a bag of trash into a dumpster), the lead up felt very long at times. It was occasionally punctuated by a small bit of action, but not quite enough to keep me fully engaged.The scene when Claire grabs the recorder and goes in search of some fresh EVP material for Luke's very Geocities-looking ghost hunter website was a great one, maybe the best in the whole film. The tension that was built up by her moving slowly down the hall, face full of disbelief, as she listened to the phantom piano playing was intense… and the climax of the two piano keys being struck all on their own was amazing. Less is truly more.I wasn't a fan of Kelly McGillis's character, Leanne Rease-Jones, at all — a washed up TV actress who was passing through town not for an acting gig but a "healer's convention". She absolutely fit into the overall theme of the characters — people who are at some kind of crossroads in their life and figuring out what their next step, or their calling, is — but overall she came across as very cheesy and predictable.Claire and Luke are convincingly aimless — neither knowing where they're headed in life and not seeming to care much, either (Claire muses "Why do people have to have such high expectations?" at one point). Claire in particular is almost humorously clueless at times, whether she's oblivious to Luke's drunken confession of his crush on her or standing, mouth agape, in her underwear as an angry mother exits the hotel, shielding her son's eyes from the nudity. But this movie is as much about the frustrating and yet persistent feeling of lacking direction as anything else, paralleling the living with the dead as Madeline O'Malley, the abandoned bride who haunts the inn, is similarly stuck wandering the halls.I did love that, after everything, we aren't ever sure how much of the sightings are legitimate or just a figment of Claire's eager imagination, all the way up to her death at the end (she's sucking on an inhaler throughout the film so it's just as likely that she scared herself into a deadly asthma attack being trapped in that basement).But, I don't know. It just didn't do much for me as a whole. It felt as aimless as the characters' lives, and a vast majority of the movie — over an hour of the 1 hour and 40 minute runtime — was spent building up to an ultimately dissatisfying ending. Not my favorite, though I will still watch anything Ti West puts out there.

If you're looking for an actual horror movie, this isn't it. Unless of course, you fast forward through the first hour and twenty minutes. The "horror" doesn't last very long in this movie. The initial 80 minutes is spent in what if's and supposes. The owner is off in the islands and will return at the end of the week. Which makes no sense since the place is closing permanently at that time. The owner should be on hand to make sure everything is going according to plan. Claire and Luke are the only employees remaining at the inn, which is a week from closing. Yet, neither of them are doing anything to prepare for the closing. They spend most of their time sitting at the front desk whining about their lives. It gets to the point, you want something to happen just to shut them up. The four final guests are nothing special. A woman and her son are staying there while the woman contemplates divorcing her louse of a husband. Kelly McGillis (whom I feel is only in this movie as a recognizable name)is Leanne Rease-Jones, who is an actress turned mystic in town for a conference. She carries a pentacle she claims connects her to spirits. Yet, you never actually see any flashes of these spirits, just inaudible whispers and her making faces whenever they "speak" to her. She keeps referring to "They", yet who "They" are is never explained. When the old man arrives, things finally pick up pace. Not much pace, but enough for one good scare at the end. Giving it a 4 because I am feeling generous.

I was hoping for a good ghost story but it failed to deliver. I was rather bored half way into the film. Mainly the two innkeepers are friends and flirt with each other. I think they like each other in "that way" but neither wants to make the first move - that's what I got out of it for the most part. OH then we have our ghost or spirit that is hardly focused on for most of the flick. Towards the end of the film they finally get to the ghost but by then I really didn't care, I just wanted the movie over with. It's true that about the time you think the movie is going to get good then it drops back down to more scenes of friends flirting again or other mundane things. 3/10