Day 15: The Innkeepers (2011)

A Month of Horror

I have always wanted to do a marathon of "HORROR" throughout the month of October, one where I would revisit a new horror movie every day from the first to the thirty-first.  I will revisit the classics as well as new entries into the canon.  There are many movies that define this time of year, and I hope to showcase 31 of them this month...

October 15: The Innkeepers (2011)

Director Ti West burst onto the horror scene in 2009 with his film "The House of The Devil", which was brilliantly marketed as a low-budget '80s style babysitter-in-peril type film and was actually released on VHS (not too common for its time) as well as more modern formats.

With "The Innkeepers", West proves he is capable of much more than loving homage to the type of movie that no doubt inspired him.  Rather than follow up his initial success with a sequel, or similarly themed venture, West instead pursued the supernatural with what can only be described as a slow burn suspense film.

Incorporating elements of both "The Shining" and the "Paranormal Activity" films, "The Innkeepers" tells the story of Claire and Luke, two attendants working the front desk of The Yankee Peddler Inn on its last weekend of operation.  The fact that Luke's character happens to be running a website about paranormal activity at the hotel is relevant, as well as a bit of a red herring.

Many might describe this particular film as boring, because the gore is limited to certain key points.  They would be missing the point.  What this movie does well, is create a sense of slow burn dread that is a-typical in today's horror movie landscape, a suspense that feeds on the unseen horrors more than the obvious jump scares.

"The Innkeepers" does a great job of building dread, and rarely relies on illustrating the terror being experienced by Claire and Luke.  In that sense, it is not unlike the first movie to open this column, John Carpenter's "Halloween".  There are moments of pure shock and gore, but this really is a psychological terror, not entirely different from Stanley Kubrick's classic take on Stephen King's "The Shining".

 Like "The House of The Devil", this movie is an homage to those that came before it, only with "The Innkeepers", Ti West pursues a direction more in the vein of Hammer Films' classic tales of suspense and dread.  If you are patient enough, you will find yourself endeared by Sara Paxton's "Claire" for certain, and to a slightly lesser degree Pat Healy's "Luke" and Kelly McGillis'"Miss Rease-Jones".

Tomorrow, I just might head out to the original cabin in the woods.