"The Innkeepers" (2011)

The Innkeepers is a movie that buys into the potential virtue of seemingly nothing happening. It's a horror movie that doesn't obsess with getting right to the scares, and in the process it becomes a well-crafted piece of dread inducing cinema. The longer nothing happens, nothing even remotely frightening, the more we wonder when something might happen. Director Ti West used this same notion to even better effect in his terrific House of the Devil. In some ways, the film is indebted to horror movies such as The Shining where the story and imagery get to us in our gut by being unsettling and surreal rather than from startling us. Set in a creepy old hotel on its last weekend in business, the film largely focuses on the two employees overseeing the building in its last days. They split time between dealing with their residents -- utilized primarily for comic effect -- and investigating the paranormal phenomenon allegedly haunting the place. Luke (Pat Healy) clearly has a crush on Claire (Sara Paxton) and he's using the ghost talk as a chance to woo her. She's completely oblivious to this even as it's obvious to us, taking the talk about spirits as a welcome distraction from the humdrum minimum wage job. However, in time, Claire becomes more invested in the ghost hunting than Luke and the film focuses on her. The Innerkeepers has many virtues, chief among them is its sharp characterization. Claire is one of the better female character horror has written in recent memory; strong and curious yet unmistakably nervous and doubtful. The interplay between Luke and Claire is also especially strong and speaks to the film's small doses of humor and playfulness. West is great at composition. He uses the early going of the film to establish the lay out of the hotel and its winding corridors, and to develop characters. The Innkeepers is a throwback to older horror movies where the story rather than the scares was the top priority. The film weaves a simple but deliberately told story that isn't worried about being a little slower going in the early proceedings, building a creeping sense of paranoia. Although it ultimately isn't able to stick the landing, with an ending that feels like an unintentional anticlimax, everything that comes before is a confidently told with visual panache.

Grade: 3/4 ★★★