SXSW 2011: THE INNKEEPERS Review
They're likable co-workers; Luke is a bit older and cynical, Claire a bouncy, extraordinarily cute young woman with spunk and energy. They're both low-level employees without much drive or ambition, it seems, content to work their dead-end jobs without much thought or hope for the future. But, still, they're likable and their banter and interactions are very funny.
During his spare hours at the front desk, Luke keeps himself busy by setting up a website about real-life hauntings: pictures and video clips of "proven" ghost stories. The Yankee Pedlar Inn has its own doozy of a legend. Many years before, a woman hung herself in the inn, and it's said that her ghost still haunts the inn. Luke keeps an EVP (Electronic Ghost Phenomenon) recorder handy and stalks around the public spaces of the inn listening for her.
Claire does that, too, but she's much more excited when Leeanne Rease-Jones (Kelly McGillis) checks in as a guest. Lee, as she asks to be called, is the former star of a popular TV show that Claire adored as a child; she's struck almost speechless by the woman's presence in close proximity to her. Lee has retired from acting and turned to a different profession, which is why she's in the small town where the inn is located, attending a seminar as a guest speaker.
The only other guests in the inn are a woman and her son, who keep to themselves except when they're complaining about something or other.
After Lee checks in, Claire is passing the boring hours on her shift by exploring with Luke's EVP recorded, and she hears ... something. Then she hears ... something else. Then Lee tells her something ... disturbing. Events head into unsettling territory that's intended to be creepy and spooky, and which caused the packed house at the Paramount Theatre last night to jump and jolt and sit upright.
Except I wasn't on the same wavelength as the audience or director Ti West. There are both callbacks to other movies and intentional efforts to play against those tropes. To my eyes, the brightly-lit interiors were the most perplexing, and it's not just a debate of 35mm versus digital video. Obviously it was intentional, and I applaud anyone who tries to make a daytime ghost story, even though almost all the action takes place indoors and at night. It's an effect, there's something behind it, but distracts rather than enhances.
There are other elements, too, that were underwhelming in their resolution, though I don't want to spoil the potential surprises.
To its credit, The Innkeepers has much to recommend it. The dialogue sparkles, the banter is quick-witted and screwball-ish, Sara Paxton is uber-cute and adorable (even when she does what every horror movie ever says not to do), and Kelly McGillis adds the necessary gravitas. Pat Healy holds up his end of the co-worker relationship with aplomb.
West is doing things here that are very much his own, and he has a distinct eye for visuals and for pacing the story. It just doesn't all come together here. Judging from the positive audience reaction, though, that's a distinctly minority reaction.
The Innkeepers
Director(s)
- Ti West
Writer(s)
- Ti West
Cast
- Sara Paxton
- Pat Healy
- Alison Bartlett
- Jake Ryan
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