#170 -- The Innkeepers (2011)

Director: Ti West
Rating: 3 / 5

Many years ago, a woman named Madeline O'Malley hanged herself after her fiance left her standing at the altar. It happened at a quaint little inn called The Yankee Pedlar, and Madeline's spirit is said to be haunting the inn to this day. Claire and Luke, a couple of paranormal investigators, took jobs at the inn so they could hopefully prove that Madeline's spirit was present. The Yankee Pedlar hadn't been getting very good business as of late, though, and would shortly be shut down. The owner was out of the country, so Claire and Luke were the only staff members present at the inn. Along with them were a woman and her young son, who left after a short time and seemed completely pointless. There was also a woman named Leanne Rease-Jones, an actress turned psychic, who helped Claire and Luke out throughout their investigation (mostly Claire, though, because Luke thought she was full of shit). After a while, another man showed up. I don't think he ever said his name, but he was kind of creepy and ended up killing himself in his bathtub. I think he was supposed to be Madeline's ex fiance, though it never really specified. Anyways, all the action culminated in the basement, where I suppose Madeline's spirit was actually trapped. Again, it didn't really specify. In the end, Claire ended up facing the spirit alone, though the ending was extremely abrupt and disappointing. The seemed less like a horror movie, and more like one of those paranormal investigation shows. A lot of nothing and a very small amount of action.

I didn't like the fact that everything just sort of happened without reason or explanation. It didn't get too much into the story of Madeline and her fiance, which I also didn't like. There wasn't very much investigating being done by Claire or Luke, meaning there wasn't very much ghost action. When we finally did see Madeline, she was pretty awesome. I wish they would have used her more, and given her more of a story. What I did like was the characters. Claire and Luke worked really well together and had great chemistry. The actors did a great job with them, and I was very drawn to them, especially Claire. Luke ended up disappointing me, but I still liked him at the end. But the great characters couldn't save the movie fro the lack of any real story. When it comes to ghost stories, I love ones with really deep stories concerning the spirits. I want to sympathize with them as well as the heroes of the story. I want to feel like I understand why they're trapped on Earth, and why they're so angry. Also, I like for them to be present for more than ten minutes of the movie. I like some scares! People say jump scares are cheesy or cliche, but personally I love them. This had none of those. Or any other scares at all, for that matter. The main reason to see this movie is for the chemistry between the main characters, but that's not really reason enough to see a movie, is it? Especially when it's a horror movie, whose sole purpose should be to scare the pants off of us. I had heard some good things about this movie, so I was hoping to love it. I didn't love it, though, and I was sadly disappointed.