At the Yankee Pedlar, you might check in but...
...you get it.
Ti West's The Innkeepers has made the month once again. I was in the mood for it, quite frankly. I like this movie. Some hated it. It followed House of the Devil so anticipation was too fucking high, I guess. I prefer this one, actually. House has grown on me, but I liked this upon first visit. I like Sara Paxton in it. She's almost in every scene except the one mattered most to her character. Pat Healy is her buddy, a clerk like her in the Yankee Pedlar Inn. Healy is probably maybe ten years older than her but pines for her affection. She just has a fascination with the paranormal, while the film soon unveils that his is sketchier than hers. He has a site for his "paranormal experiences" and shares them with Paxton, and her interest in it just toots his horn. Its clear this interest is his whole reason not to move on to something else. And she's legit in her desire to catch the inn's supposed spook, Madeleine O'Malley, while Healy actually flees when the emergence of an actual apparition surfaces.
He returns, but his fraudulence is an open exposure of how he isn't as dedicated to capturing or catching a real ghost on audio or camera. He's alive by film's end, so maybe that was just as well. It is of some significance that Kelly McGillis' actress-turned-spiritualist would show up during this specific two nights when Paxton would encounter what she was looking for. George Riddle is quite haunting as an old man wanting a specific room (353) due to "nostalgic reasons". It has a special place in his heart and this fatalism that reeks from him is palpable. He went into that room with no plans of leaving alive. Paxton's finding him in the bathtub is probably the most chilling of the film.
But the film is simple. It isn't complex and that might be, besides the pace (although in this film's case, it didn't bother me because I liked Paxton so much, and the setting was aesthetically pleasing to me throughout), a detriment against it. Paxton is trying to find a ghost. It exists. Noises are made. The ghost (s) surfaces. A piano plays to Paxton. Audio is important in this film, but Ti West does include a ghost or two so the audience doesn't feel cheated.
If you enjoy Paxton then perhaps this will be enough. She is front and center the star. She's not just cute. That might be one of those "aww shucks" arguments that her being cute isn't enough to satisfy the Blumhouse crowd. But I think when Ti does include the paranormal it is similar to the Blumhouse machine. This film, though, isn't quite as telegraphed. It gives the character Paxton room to breathe and the setting itself is given plenty of time for us to "stay" there.
Ti West's The Innkeepers has made the month once again. I was in the mood for it, quite frankly. I like this movie. Some hated it. It followed House of the Devil so anticipation was too fucking high, I guess. I prefer this one, actually. House has grown on me, but I liked this upon first visit. I like Sara Paxton in it. She's almost in every scene except the one mattered most to her character. Pat Healy is her buddy, a clerk like her in the Yankee Pedlar Inn. Healy is probably maybe ten years older than her but pines for her affection. She just has a fascination with the paranormal, while the film soon unveils that his is sketchier than hers. He has a site for his "paranormal experiences" and shares them with Paxton, and her interest in it just toots his horn. Its clear this interest is his whole reason not to move on to something else. And she's legit in her desire to catch the inn's supposed spook, Madeleine O'Malley, while Healy actually flees when the emergence of an actual apparition surfaces.
He returns, but his fraudulence is an open exposure of how he isn't as dedicated to capturing or catching a real ghost on audio or camera. He's alive by film's end, so maybe that was just as well. It is of some significance that Kelly McGillis' actress-turned-spiritualist would show up during this specific two nights when Paxton would encounter what she was looking for. George Riddle is quite haunting as an old man wanting a specific room (353) due to "nostalgic reasons". It has a special place in his heart and this fatalism that reeks from him is palpable. He went into that room with no plans of leaving alive. Paxton's finding him in the bathtub is probably the most chilling of the film.
But the film is simple. It isn't complex and that might be, besides the pace (although in this film's case, it didn't bother me because I liked Paxton so much, and the setting was aesthetically pleasing to me throughout), a detriment against it. Paxton is trying to find a ghost. It exists. Noises are made. The ghost (s) surfaces. A piano plays to Paxton. Audio is important in this film, but Ti West does include a ghost or two so the audience doesn't feel cheated.
If you enjoy Paxton then perhaps this will be enough. She is front and center the star. She's not just cute. That might be one of those "aww shucks" arguments that her being cute isn't enough to satisfy the Blumhouse crowd. But I think when Ti does include the paranormal it is similar to the Blumhouse machine. This film, though, isn't quite as telegraphed. It gives the character Paxton room to breathe and the setting itself is given plenty of time for us to "stay" there.
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