Lean and scary, "The Innkeepers" was shot in 17 days in a quaint Connecticut hotel called the Yankee Pedlar, where writer-director Ti West stayed while making his previous movie, "The House of the Devil."
West works quickly and cheaply, and his latest, like "Devil,"flies in the face of almost every other kind of fright out there at the moment. It's retro without a trace of self-consciousness. When did you last see opening credits including a phrase as homey and comforting as: " ... and Kelly McGillis as Leanne Rease-Jones"?
Leads first. On the eve of their inn's closing, employees and pals Claire and Luke, played by Sara Paxton and Pat Healy, set out to confirm the existence of paranormal activity within the creaky old walls. "We're gonna get something good," Claire says, as they haul out the video camera and microphone for old ghosts' sake, one last time. "I can feel it." There's nothing else going on in their isolated, recession-thwarted lives; they need the spirits to lift their own.
Few guests darken the inn's doors: There's a mother and a son escaping a rough domestic situation, and a onetime actress turned psychic, played by McGillis. There's also an ancient gent who desires a night in Room 353, the honeymoon suite. He has been there before.
How this plays out, and how a long-ago suicide informs the slim story, allows West to honor the ghost stories he admires most — straightforward, effective examples of the genre, mostly from the '60s, '70s and early '80s — while developing his suspense skills. Each visit to the root cellar is an exercise in nerve-tightening; the first time we hear the overloud telephone at the front desk, it's both alarming and funny.
Healy's timing sometimes goes slack, but he and Paxton click nicely as the underpaid but nervy ghost-busters.
Will "The Innkeepers" be enough for the young folk? These days there's little middle ground between the determined lack of gore in the"Paranormal Activity"franchise and the determined overabundance offered by so much else. West works in that No Man's Land, intelligently. His similarly nostalgic and carefully paced "House of the Devil" barely cracked $100,000 at the domestic box office. Here's hoping his latest entices the niche horror audience it deserves.
"The Innkeepers"
Grade: Three stars out of four
Genres: Horror, thriller
Running Time: 100 minutes
MPAA Rating: R
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