The Innkeepers is a really cheap looking film. I honestly half expect when I bother to Google it, find out it was made for a very modest budget and edited in windows movie maker. One of the first things I noted when the film started was that the credits seemed to use Time New Roman, For the record, in my opinion, Time New Roman always looks cheap and very basic. So, once the film actually starts past its opening credits, it feels like a improvement. So, lets put the breakdown of the story shall we?
The Innkeepers is a ghost story, set at the Yankee Pedlar Inn in a unspecified time frame (only reason I feel thats worth mentioning is that the technology in the film seems really dated, late 90's maybe) and centers around the two staff members, Claire (Sarah Paxton) and Luke (Pat Healey) on hand during its last weekend of operation. The staff see this weekend as they're last chance to get proof behind the fabled haunting of the Inn.
The film really is a mixed bag, as a production, it seems really cheap, one of the strengths of the film is that it largely restricts itself to the location of the inn, with the exception of one scene that takes in the shop next door. I'm a sucker for minimalist films. Keeping to a single building or room really helps to make things feel more intimate and create a sense of claustrophobia, The inn is probably getting a little on the big side of these idea's but they do try they're best to restrict it to just a couple of rooms, but still its not as tight an environment as films like 'The Cube', 'The Killing Floor' or 'The Exam', but its sufficient enough.
The almost exclusively focuses on Claire, who Sarah Paxton plays with an almost childlike innocents, and it even shows in the way he walks, very slowly and not in a full stride without creeping. These characteristics aren't bad but they're not great either. It makes it hard to buy her performance when she could just be hiding behind her big baby blues. Its kind of refreshing for her character to not be walking around in a tank top and her underwear for most of the film (there's one, maybe 20 second scene where she does). Pat Healey isn't really given as much to do in the film, and his script isn't exactly brilliant either, but he manages to work it into a nice performance without demonstrating too much.
The thing that surprised me most about the film was the make up for the eventual apperances of the spirit's that roam the Yankee Pedlar. It's quite good, and the director (Ti West) knows not to linger on the spirits for too long lest you be able to pick flaws in they're appearance. Although, i would say there are other times where i felt he hung on a shot too long for the obvious pay-off, maybe its being done to make you think 'maybe they won't go there', but they always do. The film does a reasonable job of setting up the intrigue, but as it enters the third act, it kicks up the pace and there's some changes in characters that don't seem kinda of forced in a way to get them out of a room for awhile.
The innkeepers is a bit of fun, without being anything too hard core. It's hard to recommend who it's for. It starts off very slowly, for very little pay off.
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