Mysterious Innkeepers Goes Bump in the Night
The Yankee Peddler of Torrington, Connecticut is closing its doors. Open since 1891, the owner just can’t keep things going anymore, so employees Claire (Sara Paxton) and Luke (Pat Healy) are in charge of overseeing the final weekend with only a handful of eccentric guests to keep them company.
Sara Paxton and Pat Healy in The Innkeepers © Magnet Releasing
And that’s perfectly fine as far as they’re both concerned. You see, the Yankee Peddler is haunted, gusts and staff noticing strange surreal paranormal events for going on a century. Claire and Luke, amateur ghost hunters to their core, are going to prove these phenomena are indeed taking place, using the hotel’s final remaining hours to uncover the ethereal secrets the venue has been ominously hiding for generation after generation.
As you can imagine, things don’t entirely go as planned in writer/director Ti West’s follow-up to his minor independent horror sensation The House of the Devil, the eerie if all-to-familiar The Innkeepers not exactly filling the haunted house rule book with any new entries. Things go bump in the night, lights flicker, pianos play by themselves, weird old men check insist on being given access to a room where history suggests a sad newlywed hung herself and a former child star (Kelly McGillis) presents herself as a practicing psychic. It’s the usual hokum, nothing more, and decidedly nothing less, and anyone expecting something different or groundbreaking better be prepared for disappointment.
For those willing to let the film’s modest charms work on them, however, West’s latest can be a heck of a pulse-pounding ride. There are some great moments, especially during sequences when Claire finds herself alone inside the expansive New England hotel trying to record paranormal noises while at the same time doing her best, and mostly not succeeding, to keep her timidity and fear in check. Like House of the Devil, the director shows a flair for ambience and mood, a delectable air of gothic malevolence hovering over the proceedings even during the sillier sequences where the two Yankee Peddler clerks banter back and forth.
At the same time, also like his previous effort West’s ability to pace his B-movie narratives leaves something to be desired. Even at a brisk 100-minutes, The Innkeepers drags, sometimes relentlessly. I get that the director wants to build suspense slowly, wants evoke the greats like Robert Wise (The Haunting) or Stanley Kubrick (The Shining), but where they knew when to pull back and when to step on the accelerator, West still seems unable to fully comprehend the working of the clutch. The early portions are frustratingly herky-jerky, and if not for a moderately sensational last third I’m not altogether sure I’d be bothering to write a review for this one at all.
Yet that last third is kind of wonderful, and even though the outcome is never in doubt (you’ll have it pegged within the first ten minutes) getting there is still a great deal of sweaty-brow fun. Paxton is energetically perky as the central heroine, while Healy has the deadpan slacker thing down pat. McGillis, much like she did in Stake Land, steals the majority of the scenes she’s in, no matter how cheesy her dialogue might be or how ridiculous the situations undeniably are, while veteran character actor George Riddle makes an indelible impression as the hotel’s final, somewhat suspicious guest.
But the real star here is the Yankee Peddler itself, the New England landmark showing itself off to absolute perfection. It becomes the movie’s most important, must innervating character, and the way cinematographer Eliot Rockett glides down its halls enraptured the most malevolent and sinister corners of my most intimate imaginations. Combined with Jeff Grace’s (Meek’s Cutoff) suitably minimalist score the effect the hotel has is certifiably creepy in the extreme, and after watching the movie I don’t know if I want to call up the front desk for a reservation or never stay in similar type of abode anyplace at any time ever again.
West has talent, both this and House of the Devil prove that, I just don’t think he’s quite lived up to his potential as of this time. With The Innkeepers, the independently minded filmmaker keeps moving in the right direction, and I like that he uses restraint and nuance to bring his tales of horror and the bizarre to life. But the final product, for all its insidious intent and moments of unhinged hair-raising glory, still feels sluggish and more than a bit unrefined, and in the end that particular bit of disappointing truth might be the scariest realization of them all.
Film Rating: êê1/2 (out of 4)
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