Saturday, October 27, 2012

Innkeepers (2011)


Introduction:
This movie has gotten a lot of good buzz in horror circles and the director Ti West has been called one of the best horror directors to come around in a while. His previous film, The House of Devil was considered one of the best of the genre in 2009. Is The Inkeepers as good as the buzz says or is this one haunted inn to stay away from?

Summary:
Claire (Sara Paxton) has a pretty dull job at the Yankee Pedler Inn, a picturesque old building that is just about to go out of business. She minds the place with Luke (Pat Healy), both of them going through the motions, goofing off and keeping the few guests as happy as possible. They also spend some time hunting ghosts. You see the inn has a history and a ghost story or two tied to it. Luke has actually encountered the supernatural in the inn and Claire wants to have some spooky fun too. This all leads to some “be careful what you wish for” especially when a psychic (Kelly McGillis) sees some trouble in Claire’s future. Will our Innkeepers see some ghosts or become the ghosts?

Good Points:
  • Excellent acting by the leads makes you like and care about them
  • Wonderful atmosphere builds the tension up to a boiling point
  • Some funny and fun dialogue

Bad Points:
  • Gore fans will be very disappointed
  • Anyone looking for lots of scares will be disappointed
  • Some may find the quirky characters annoying

Overall:
What a surprise this movie turned out to be. It’s an old fashioned ghost story with some fun and quirky characters. The first two thirds of the movie establish your leads and their personalities, and slowly build up the ghost story and history of the inn. The final third brings everything into play – including the guests to create some really good jump scares and some solid tingles for your spine. An easy winner for a spooky evening for fun. I’ll certainly be looking forward to more from Mr. West.

Scores (out of 5)
Visuals: 4
Sound: 4
Acting: 5
Script: 4
Music: 4
Direction: 4
Entertainment: 4
Total:  4

Curious about a full review, sent me an email and I’ll make additional thoughts to this review.

2 comments:

  1. This happened to be on satellite last night. I watched it because of your review. Ghost stories are not generally my genre, so I likely otherwise would have passed it by. It's not bad by the standards of such flicks. Thanks for the recommendation.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Glad you enjoyed it. I've run into a few folks who found it too slow, but I ended up enjoying the characters so much I didn't mind the slow build. I saw another review that said it reminded them of "Clerks" in a haunted house - not a bad description. :)

    ReplyDelete