The Innkeepers: Director Ti West Delivers

The Yankee Pedlar Inn is the quaint, homey kind of hotel that you've probably passed dozens of times before on your way through or around historic New England.  Perhaps it's because so many people have passed it by instead of stayed in it that it's closing its doors forever. 

Little pomp and circumstance is given to the Connecticut inn on its final weekend, but that doesn't mean that the Yankee Pedlar's employees are packing it in without one last hurrah.  The hurrah is not a party, but an experiment.  You see, the Yankee Pedlar has long had a reputation for being haunted by the tragic specter of Madeline O'Malley and during these last few nights, part-timers Claire (Sara Paxton) and Luke (Pat Healy) are determined to capture definitive proof of a spiritual presence.

During the day, Claire and Luke marginally deal with the inn's last few customers, which include Leanne Rease-Jones (Kelly McGillis), a former TV actress turned spiritual healer, and an Old Man (George Riddle), who desires to once more stay in the room where he and his wife honeymooned long ago. 

At night, the pair work in shifts.  While one sleeps, the other goes about the paranormal business of attempting EVP (electronic voice phenomena) sessions.  Late at night left alone to her own devices, Claire swears that she's picked up Madeline's voice, but Luke is skeptical.  Couldn't Claire's imagination just be playing tricks on her? 

Leanne, armed with new age sensibilities and a crystal pendant to match, claims that the Yankee Pedlar has seen tragedy and it's in everyone's best interests to get out immediately.  But if there is indeed a presence lingering, will it allow them to leave?

Ti West, the writer/director/editor of The Innkeepers, has gained critical acclaim and a devoted following for his filmmaking style, which is reminiscent of Stanley Kubrick's The Shining and Jack Clayton's The Innocents more so than of any modern, "popular" horror contemporaries.  Viewers and fans of West's previous film, The House of the Devil, will know what to expect from The Innkeepers in how he envelops us in a mood and subverts the expectations and archetypes that the horror genre has trapped us in.

It begins with the writing and casting of the main characters who serve as the audience surrogates in not only their plainness, but also in their naivety.  Though 20-somethings, Claire and Luke are not the quintessential horror fodder boasting the obscenely good looks that are so often incongruous and distancing.  Luke, with his receding faux hawk and thick-rimmed glasses, and Claire, sans makeup and sporting torn skinny jeans, aren't going to be finding themselves in scantily-clad situations any time soon and this aesthetic mundanity is a perfect move by West to present to us characters to whom we can relate and who appear representative of both their demographic and locale.  This averageness, which trickles down even to the circa 1990s ghost website the pair have created for the inn, helps establish a connection between us and them almost immediately and gives us reason to care when it finally comes time for Claire to open that creaky door head into the dark basement.

While we're on the topic of said dark basement, the fact that the characters progress to a point where the motivations behind entering the unholiest of unholy horror locales is a logical progression of the narrative as opposed to genre obligation speaks volumes of West's intelligence as a writer and director who knows that every false jump scare and every unsettling revelation will guide us to a specific, horrifying climax. 

The jump scares won't necessarily startle anyone because they're purposefully cheap; when West wants to scare us, he does so without shoehorning in audible stingers, presenting the terrifying images with a deliberate and mature of fact nature.  The effectiveness of these moments lies in West's confidence that you're on board with his style, which admittedly, relies on a weariness of mainstream horror and a longing for whatever is its polar opposite.  In the case of The Innkeepers, that manifests in long stretches where nothing paranormal happens and the promise of a payoff serves as the primary tension builder.  Fans of shows such as "Ghost Hunters" and "Ghost Adventures" will recognize this milieu as endearingly authentic, assuming, of course, that ghosts do exist and their pursuit has some scientific basis. 

But despite all its strengths, watching The Innkeepers still gives off the impression that while West holds the potential for a great film that has not yet come to fruition.  At an hour and forty minutes, one wonders how much waiting around we as viewers would be subjected to if West was armed with a budget that would open some technical doors or a more experienced producer who would help iron out the kinks of a character like Leanne, whose appearance and expertise seems a bit too convenient for an otherwise smart script.  Still, even these complaints are largely superficial and preferential, saying more about me as a viewer than about West as a rare talent who continues to hone a style that confirms him as a filmmaker worth watching and supporting.