Review of The Innkeepers (2011) by James R — 06 Dec 2012

Having abandoned the horror genre due to the fact their is too much gore and not enough intelligence,i was told to check out the films of Ti West who is seen as the hot new talent in the genre.

I plumped for his second film and despite having low expectations I was pleasantly suprised by what he managed to conjure up.

The premise is simple Two employees working at the soon to be closing Yankee Pedlar inn are trying to track down the ghost of a woman murdered there years before.

As the story unfolds we begin to see an unknown and sinister force at work which threatens to seep the couple into even greater dangers.

The obvious comparision here would The Shining and thats no bad thing as West is paying homage rather than simply aping the genre films thats have come before him.

I found references to Sam Raimi ,Brian De Palma and of Course Alfred Hitchcock so its good to see that West is following in the footsteps of masters.

The largely unknown cast excels most notably Sara Paxton as Claire who leads the duo in her quest to uncover the secrets at the heart of Yankee Pedlar.

The biggest shock for me was seeing Kelly McGIllis as Leanne Jones a burnt out actress with a tatse for minature bottles of booze and contatcting the spirits.

Her perormance is a long long way from those that made her name in the 80s but she is excellent and its good to have her back in any shape or form.

So while their isnt too much original here ,Ti West is one name I will look out for in future.