thelastblogontheleft The Innkeepers, directed by Ti West, came a couple years after The House of the Devil, which I recently reviewed, and I have to say… in comparison, it's a much weaker film. It takes place (and was filmed in) the real-life Yankee Pedlar Inn in Torrington, Connecticut, which is supposed to actually be haunted… so that was certainly a cool touch. But, overall, I feel like it fell short.It follows Claire (Sara Paxton) and Luke (Pat Healy), two apathetic twenty-somethings drifting their way through the last weekend of business for the inn they work at part- time. They've taken to filling the long, boring hours of watching the front desk with amateur ghost hunting, and they find out that rumors of the inn being haunted may be more true than they realize…** SPOILERS! **Ti West LOVES the concept of a super slow build-up, which I respect and actually admire. I don't think films need to be chock full of action from the first scene, and I actually appreciate the chance to get to know the characters more deeply and to get a feel for the setting, the history, the back story, etc, especially in a movie like this where the setting is almost a character in itself.While I really enjoyed Claire and Luke (more so Claire, she was goddamn adorable — I never thought I could enjoy a several minute long scene of someone trying to throw a bag of trash into a dumpster), the lead up felt very long at times. It was occasionally punctuated by a small bit of action, but not quite enough to keep me fully engaged.The scene when Claire grabs the recorder and goes in search of some fresh EVP material for Luke's very Geocities-looking ghost hunter website was a great one, maybe the best in the whole film. The tension that was built up by her moving slowly down the hall, face full of disbelief, as she listened to the phantom piano playing was intense… and the climax of the two piano keys being struck all on their own was amazing. Less is truly more.I wasn't a fan of Kelly McGillis's character, Leanne Rease-Jones, at all — a washed up TV actress who was passing through town not for an acting gig but a "healer's convention". She absolutely fit into the overall theme of the characters — people who are at some kind of crossroads in their life and figuring out what their next step, or their calling, is — but overall she came across as very cheesy and predictable.Claire and Luke are convincingly aimless — neither knowing where they're headed in life and not seeming to care much, either (Claire muses "Why do people have to have such high expectations?" at one point). Claire in particular is almost humorously clueless at times, whether she's oblivious to Luke's drunken confession of his crush on her or standing, mouth agape, in her underwear as an angry mother exits the hotel, shielding her son's eyes from the nudity. But this movie is as much about the frustrating and yet persistent feeling of lacking direction as anything else, paralleling the living with the dead as Madeline O'Malley, the abandoned bride who haunts the inn, is similarly stuck wandering the halls.I did love that, after everything, we aren't ever sure how much of the sightings are legitimate or just a figment of Claire's eager imagination, all the way up to her death at the end (she's sucking on an inhaler throughout the film so it's just as likely that she scared herself into a deadly asthma attack being trapped in that basement).But, I don't know. It just didn't do much for me as a whole. It felt as aimless as the characters' lives, and a vast majority of the movie — over an hour of the 1 hour and 40 minute runtime — was spent building up to an ultimately dissatisfying ending. Not my favorite, though I will still watch anything Ti West puts out there.

Andy Van Scoyoc Slow...boring ghost story...but atmospheric and the Inn is lovely.Not sure about the old man's purpose and how exactly he ties into the film...was he the one who killed the woman that ended up as the ghost of Madeline and came back to close the circle, or was he just a lonely old man?This is really the only issue I had with the film. The rest of it is just boring, poorly explained and didn't reach its full potential.Like I said...not a waste, but not sure how it won awards, either.

nmn34 I had high hopes going in, the box has it listed 4 stars, its rated high on RT, Rogerebert.com gave it a 3/4. It really shows the disconnect between audiences and critics however. The movie is well put together in most aspects, the acting is strong and at times it can be quite tense. But the plot is broken, there are two different movies going on and they are stuck together by tape.The first half is very bubbly and charming, it goes a great length in creating an attachment to the characters. This could have been a very entertaining comedy as two hotel clerks talk about a supposed ghost while they're underlying attraction to each other grows stronger. Then halfway through, we are confirmed that there is a ghost and the tone shifts completely. And the shift is very jarring, just BAM, here is the ghost, don't go in the basement. From here on, there are no more jokes and everyone sobers up. The lack of focus early on has major ramifications later on that hinder it from really taking off as a horror movie.The second half is done well but it is still not quite fleshed out. We are never given quite enough information on the ghost to really discern anything about her. We are led to believe in the beginning that she was someone that committed suicide when her fiancé stood her up on their wedding day but then I got the impression that a guest that comes to the hotel was her husband. His suicide note speaks of his wife, he is emotionally attached to the room she died in,and his spirit seems to assist her but that contradicts the story we were told. There is no need for motivation in ghost stories but there needs to be at least some sort of explanation what happened. It gives the audience some sort of reasoning, something to grasp onto and make them believe the character has some sort of chance even if it is just to be taken away.What gets me the worse about the story is the implication that there are three benefactor spirits. Its mentioned by the actress that they died in some tragedy and were warning Claire to stay out of the basement. The problem is, when? They were never brought up before nor heard from again by a character that plays a pivotal role for Claire's character. There isn't even any ghostly evidence of their existence, like they were cut from the script and the director forgot to fix the one line. It could be that the actress is trying to frame her warning, but why? Why not just say it was the ghost? Why mention some vague tragedy that no one seems aware of? And why 3? If she is framing her advice, it's like a person with a bag on their head trying to prove they aren't crazy by trading their paper bag for plastic.The ending has impact because Claire was a likable character but her death really has no build. Its quite obvious what is going to come, she locks the bilco door and seals her own fate, but there was no twists and turns that made it seem she was going to escape. The lack of catharsis makes for a forgettable finale, certainly not one that deserves such a high score elsewhere.

sanjidparvez Like House of the Devil, Ti West's this new spook-fest takes its time to build up the characters & suspense. The story is pretty simple set in a beautiful premise...an old, haunted hotel. The shock factors is kinda low in here which may not satisfy some viewers and with white & fade eyes the main ghost looks kinda silly sometime. But the thing is it's a straight forward ghost story and what really interesting is how nicely Mr. West still managed to deliver an effective spooky tale through the doors, rooms & passageways of Yankee Pedlar Inn. Mr. West shows his craftsmanship as a promising director for genre films another time here by efficiently handling two major technical aspects in the film...the direction and the background scores & sound. The neat camera works & sound mixing beautifully created & maintained an unease & eerie atmosphere in every corner of the Inn (somewhat like The Shinning) throughout the film and that's the main strength of the film, IMO.