David O'ConnellMIFF 2011: The Innkeepers
July 29th 2011 03:08
Ti West’s follow up to his acclaimed 80’s set satanic horror film House of the Devil (2009) is a superbly constructed horror comedy that allows adequate time for characterisation in the build up to its scary set pieces. A Connecticut hotel, 'The Yankee Pedlar' is on its last legs and in the final week before its closure only two employees remain to oversee the last rites. Claire (Sara Paxton) and Luke (Pat Healy) who is fooling around with a website he’s created exploiting the unverified haunted history of the Pedlar.
Before the place is finally closed both would love to acquire some genuine proof of its dark past which centres around the figure of the hotel's former tenant. After a well-honed sense of camaraderie is established between the pair, things start to go bump in the night. The Pedlar's sole remaining guest, former actress and now half-baked mystic, Leanne Rease-Jones (Kelly McGillis), reluctantly contributes to their amateurish enquiries into the paranormal.
The comedic aspects of The Innkeepers (2011) were like a release valve for the director - a means by which he sought a bit of fun in intermittently abandoning the relentless, sinister seriousness of his recent films. Though Claire’s goofiness is perhaps a little overstretched, and in a couple of instances annoying, I kind of rolled with it, trusting West to deliver the goods. And he does, incrementally elevating the degrees of tension but never forgetting to allow moments of levity to sneak through the cracks.
West is a seriously good director; his calculated, slithering utilization of the camera as it treks through the tight corridors, cleverly making use of space, is another highlight of what is an exceptionally well crafted, low budget film. Special mention to composer Jeff Grace too for his score which includes a superb opening titles cue and ramps up the more frantic frights in appropriate fashion.
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