The building has long been said to be haunted, though conclusive evidence of any supernatural presence within the resort is yet to be found. One thing is for certain: the Yankee Pedlar Inn shall surely enjoy an enormous boost in revenue thanks to the film’s release, along with a slight decline: I can’t imagine those of a more spiritual persuasion wishing to spend a night in a Yankee Pedlar room after seeing West’s film and witnessing the skin-crawling horrors contained therein. Still, people can be daring, although perhaps not enough to venture anywhere near the building’s basement.
“The Innkeepers” sees the Yankee Pedlar on its deathbed: after decades of success, it is now living out its final weekend before closing up shop forever. Only two employees remain in the building: college drop-out slackers Claire (Sarah Paxton, “Shark Night”), about 20, and Luke (Pat Healy, “Rescue Dawn”), about 30. With just two guests to care for (a stressed-out mother and her young, easily scared boy) and the third floor shut down, Claire and Luke don’t have very much to do around the place, although Luke still forgets to load the rooms with fresh towels every now and then.
In their spare time, of which they have much, they bicker away at the front desk (think Dante and Randal from Kevin Smith’s “Clerks"), playfully mock what few guests they have and, interestingly, hunt for ghosts around the Yankee Pedlar. Just like the real thing, the hotel of “The Innkeepers" is said to be haunted. Here, it is by the spirit of Madeline O’Malley, aka “the widow of the Pedlar,” a honeymooner who hanged herself in one of the upstairs rooms in the 1800s when her husband abandoned her. Madeline’s body is supposedly buried in the basement, dumped there by the hotel owners. Claire enjoys reciting this story to the younger guests, shining a torch on her face for effect.
For their amateur ghost-hunting escapades, Claire and Luke toy about with video cameras and EVP monitors, and upload any notable finds onto their website, as primitively designed by Luke. So far, their finds have amounted to moving doors and floating orbs, easily explained away as gusts of wind and airborne dust. But they’re adamant that there’s something roaming the unpopulated hallways and stalking the dusty rooms of the Yankee Pedlar, and they’re dead-set on finding it - that is, if it doesn’t find them first.
Like he did so successfully in “The House of the Devil,” West makes “The Innkeepers” a slow burner: by limiting the fright factor for the film’s majority, he allows his film to slowly but surely creep up on its audience, like a spectre in the night, before the real scares begin. After a relatively frightless (but almost entirely engrossing) 70-or-so opening minutes, “The Innkeepers” descends into a climactic crescendo of gut-wrenching terror and ends on a note of hard-hitting heartbreak. The film features a tense and gripping build-up with a pay-off as rewarding as it is utterly terrifying.
As the film’s writer, director, producer and editor, West allows us to care for and sympathise with his characters during this suspenseful build-up. Part-time innkeepers Claire and Luke, as played with charming ease by Paxton and Healy, are a likeable pair who enjoy each other’s company just as much as we enjoy theirs - that is to say, very much. Claire, a scrawny asthmatic clad in torn jeans and a loose-fitting hoodie when not in the hotel’s official purple uniform, is more so our protagonist (or “scream queen”), with Luke acting as the slightly nerdy sidekick. There are glimmers of romance between the pair that one can briefly glance, though these are not dwelt on: I liked that.
Along with the grouchy mother and scaredy-cat son, there are two more guests who book a room in the Yankee Pedlar over the course of the story. One is Leanne Reese-Jones (Kelly McGillis, “Top Gun"), a washed-up soap actress turned psychic healer in town for a conference. Claire is a fan of Reese-Jones’ glory days, and can’t help but squeal with delight when called up to her room to deliver towels. Reese-Jones knows more than she lets on. The other guest is an unnamed, mysterious and frail old man (George Riddle) who stubbornly demands that he be placed in Room 353 for the night. The room is unfurnished, but he doesn’t mind. After all, he won’t be staying there for very long...
Unlike the barely noticeable Bates Motel of Alfred Hitchcock’s “Psycho” and the snowed-in, isolated Overlook Hotel of Stanley Kubrick’s “The Shining,” the Yankee Pedlar Inn is a very accessible and very public building. It stands in amongst the hustle and bustle of everyday life; yellow taxi cabs drive down the road outside every few seconds; pedestrians walk by the front door all throughout the night and day - indeed, anyone could walk in at any moment. And as you’re startled by ghostly apparitions in the dark and dingy basement below, screaming your lungs out for help and for dear life, you are faced with the knowledge that there are people casually strolling down the street above you with the power to help, yet they cannot hear you, or perhaps they choose not to. In some ways, I think that’s more haunting than simply being alone.
“The Innkeepers” is an effective horror picture directed with a quiet style and grace by Ti West. It is a traditional, old-fashioned ghost story unafraid to introduce modern elements to its production: instant messaging, web design and online pornography enter the narrative, plus an internet prank provides one of the film’s biggest scares. And scary it is, West cranking up an aura of dread and paying it off with nail-biting, hair-raising terror. Plus, like so many great horror films, it incites fear into the everyday, in this case a hotel: book a room soon after seeing “The Innkeepers” and I shall take my hat off to you. Enter a hotel basement, and I’ll eat that hat.
8/10
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