31 Days of Fright, Day 12: The Innkeepers

Welcome to day 12 of 31 Days of Fright here at Road To The Movies! In today's episode, Gabe spends a night with...

THE INNKEEPERS
2011
Rated R

I've never been a fan of ghosts. I have - at one time or another - been a fan of vampires, werewolves, zombies, masked killers, and hillbilly cannibals, but I have never been a fan of ghosts. Having said that, this far into my horror fandom, the only stories that seem to scare me anymore are ghost stories. Stories of the supernatural in general, I guess - which includes demons and gods, in addition to ghosts - but mostly ghost stories.

To this day, no movie has ever scared me as much as The Ring. I won't try to make an argument for it as the best horror movie or anything, but it had me turning lights on around the house for two weeks. The Grudge had me turning them on for a couple of nights. Even relatively safe fare like The Sixth Sense and The Others can still shake some goosebumps out of me. Much as I love them, I can't say the same for Dawn of the Dead or The Lost Boys. If I want to get scared, it's gotta be ghosts.

I think the bulk of what scares me about ghost stories is the building of tension. Case-in-point, Ti West's The Inkeepers. I've only seen two of his films (this one and the fabulously creepy House of the Devil), but it's already apparent that Ti is a master when it comes to building tension. He lets it build continually over what may seem to some to be a self-indulgently long amount of time - we're a full 45 minutes into the 1 hour 41 minute runtime of The Innkeepers before anything even remotely scary happens - but I can assure you, the payoff is well worth the wait.

The Innkeepers is the story of 2 hotel employees - Claire and Luke - working through the final weekend of a storied old hotel known as The Yankee Pedlar. The Pedlar hasn't been doing too well financially over the last few years, it seems, and the owner has decided to close up shop. Claire and Luke have been working on a paranormal investigations website together, which focuses entirely on the haunted history of The Yankee Pedlar. Claire is obsessed with getting recorded evidence of the haunting before the hotel closes, and Luke - who is clearly only interested because of Claire - is the tech guy who is going to help her get it.

The mood and tension of the film are - as I've already stated - handled masterfully by writer/director/editor Ti West, and the performances are uniformly solid. An aging Kelly McGillis turns in possibly the most meta performance of the year as an aging former Hollywood hottie. The special effects are (unless I missed something) pretty much CGI-free, which is refreshing, as the "computeryness" of special effects tends to be my chief complaint about ghost stories these days. Really, this movie is the full package.

If I have a complaint, it is this: The extremely slow building of tension - though it is handled well and is, in fact, a demonstration of Ti West's confidence and competence as a storyteller - will probably put me off of future viewings of The Innkeepers. I have a feeling that once all the twists and turns of the story are known, the tension factor will drop off drastically, and tension is what makes this movie a must.

Sadly, just as ghost stories are the only really scary stories anymore, they also tend to suffer the most when it comes to rewatching. That is to say, they were so scary the first time through that a second viewing - a viewing during which I can see the scares coming a mile away - is only going to diminish them in my mind. I prefer the memory to remain pure, so ghost stories almost never get a second viewing from me. It's too bad. I really do love being scared.

8.5/10

-GABE


Thanks for riding along! Be sure to click on the banner below to check out our YouTube channel, where you can watch our videos, "like" them, subscribe to the channel, leave a comment or a question, or even suggest a movie for future review. And don't forget to check back every day in October for a new installment in our 31 Days of Fright!