Review of The Innkeepers (2011) by Robert L — 11 Mar 2013

Hotel Paranormal.

You won't of heard of The Inkeepers, almost no one has, it's a movie that came and went without a clap nor a word. But I seeked it out, I found it. So I suppose the reel question is why did I bother?

Yankee Pedlar Inn is going out of business. The hotel is open for one final weekend and two employees have only one goal, to prove that the building is haunted, like they have always believed.

Inkeepers is a horror movie of a very particular genre. The Inkeepers has class, it has restraint and it has mystery, all of which work in the films favour greatly. All too often in scary movies we are given not just the answers but the reasoning, the planning and sometimes even the special effects for the horror within a film. The Inkeepers isn't like that. The Inkeepers is a movie that takes it's time.

Ti West the writer and director, knows he has as long as he likes to build the tension of the film, he doesn't use bangs or crashes. He doesn't need to; instead he uses well drawn characters and slowly moves towards his finale. Ti West doesn't care if you don't have time for him, this movie has time for you.

The Innkeepers has a cast of only 9 people, and some of them are only for a couple of minutes, this could make the film sluggish and annoying to watch, it could make it all drag. But somehow it doesn't, instead the film benefits from a smaller cast. Narrowing the field of vision makes us focus on what's really going on in the movie.

Another aspect where The Inkeepers is different to most other horror movies is that it's quite upbeat and funny, right up until the moment where the entire film shifts and the gears change. But for at least half the film it's not about ghosts or ghouls or anything nasty at all, for most of the film The Inkeepers is about two young people who are just trying to kill time for a weekend. The musical score is the biggest clue to the films tone, it has more than a passing resemblance to Ghostbusters.

The Inkeepers is like a well-crafted illusion, the film starts out like a normal, average film and then it takes the normal and makes it do something spectacular and then you are waiting for the reveal, but it never comes, the film simple waits for your applause. It's only after that you start to reconsider what you saw and attempt to piece it all together, and no matter what way you cut it, there are still some questions left unanswered. In the next paragraph I'm going to reel off The Inkeepers secrets, please ignore it if you don't want any spoilers at all.

The films greatest asset is that it can be taken one of two ways, either there are ghosts in the hotel or there weren't. The movie plays both of these two polar extremes and balances them perfectly, never giving more credibility to one then the other, and it makes it all the more interesting and fascinating because of that fact.

The Inkeepers is about so much more than any other horror movie I've seen, it harkens back to a time when films actually were about something, and didn't just present images.

The Inkeepers is all the best elements of Ghostbusters and Paranormal Activity combined, a true hidden gem. Adult, elegant, amusing and awesome.