When The House of the Devil hit the festival circuit–leading up to a limited theatrical run–in 2009, Ti West established himself as a horror director to watch. Though not his first project, The House of the Devil hit a sweet spot: film nerds and critics loved his movie, but so did genre aficionados. West beautifully crafted a picture that paid homage to the Satanic Panic flicks of the 80s while also establishing a knack for building tension and dread with slow-burn storytelling and a clear directorial point-of-view.
Fast forward to 2011: West’s new film, The Innkeepers, is currently available on-demand through your cable provider or Amazon Instant Video. Though his new feature finds him in familiar territory (limited setting, small cast), The Innkeepers stands on its own merits.
The brilliance of The Innkeepers is that it seamlessly merges classic haunted house movie spooks with the current ghost hunting fad. If you’ve seen one of the many shows in which some moron with a voice recorder and a host of dubious “tools” calls himself a paranormal investigator, you know what I’m talking about. Historic hotels and inns are popular destinations on paranormal investigation shows–Ti West clearly knew his material when he wrote the Innkeepers screenplay.
Unfolding in three chapters and an epilogue, The Innkeepers stars Sara Paxton as Claire and Pat Healy as Luke (with an awesome supporting turn by Kelly Top Gun McGillis). Claire and Luke are the front desk staff at the historic Yankee Pedlar Inn, which is closing after one final weekend in operation. Luke, knowing how hot the current ghost hunting trend is, has set up a paranormal website, hoping to capitalize on the Yankee Pedlar Inn’s alleged haunted history. He claims to have encountered one of the hotel’s ghosts. Claire hasn’t had any such encounters, but she’s game to help Luke capture paranormal evidence.
I won’t get into a beat by beat plot description; it’s sufficient to say that the two employees are eager to do some serious ghost hunting during the hotel’s final weekend in operation because Luke needs video or audio proof of ghosts if his website is to be at all lucrative. Director West carefully establishes the characters and setting, not rushing through any painful exposition or overwrought establishing shots.
The Innkeepers is actually a comedy in its less terrifying moments. Claire and Luke are both oddly funny characters–all the more so because they resemble people you’ve probably met (and not necessarily characters you’ve seen in a movie before). The interplay between them is strange and charming. West continues to develop his characters and unveil the spooky inn setting throughout the entire film, parceling out scares little by little, building the tension and atmosphere, trusting that his audience has the patience to let this thing come to a rolling boil all on its own.
The Yankee Pedlar Inn takes its place in a long list of spookily iconic cinematic locations, and again it’s clear that West is well versed in his subject matter. Cinematographer Eliot Rockett’s camerawork in the inn’s corridors sometimes recalls the Steadicam-like shots that follows Danny through the halls of the Overlook Hotel in The Shining. At other moments–especially those taking place within the rooms themselves–you can see the echoes of much older, Gothic horror films like House on Haunted Hill. West even manages a quick, sly nod to Psycho.
When the final 20 – 30 minutes of the film arrive, West grabs you by the throat with the scares. You might find yourself yelling the classic horror audience warning,”Don’t go in there!” at the screen, but you’ll be too invested in the spooky goings-on to let the characters’ lapses in judgment pull you from the story. As with The House of the Devil, the final payoff is a worthy release from the tension West has so expertly orchestrated to get you to this point.