The Innkeepers

Fun, suspenseful, and genuinely scary, The Innkeepers is a great time at the movies.


Here’s the story.  It’s the last weekend for The Yankee Pedlar Inn before it closes and gets razed for a parking lot.  The Inn, established in 1891, has been around long enough to generate at least one good ghostly legend, and employees Sara Paxton and Pat Healy mean to get to the bottom of it before they shutter the place.


That’s  a fine premise for a “haunted hotel” picture.  Now, it’s all about the execution.  The Innkeepers executes well by creating an appropriate atmosphere, putting interesting characters in the middle of it, generating suspense, and delivering on the big scares.  The Yankee Pedlar actually exists (and it’s still in business – here’s its web site), and it’s everything one could want in an old hotel: quirky, lived-in, and comforting in one light while sinister in another.


Paxton and Healy are relatable and interesting.  They’re kinda aimless, kinda dorky, and not very bright; but they have an awkwardly sweet dynamic that plays well against the horror to come.  The tension begins to turn when that sweet dynamic starts to stress under the duo’s mounting fear, even as we wonder whether they’re witnessing an
actual haunting or just psyching themselves out.  It grows as we come down on one side or the other and realize that either conclusion is equally rich with possibility.  It hammers down in the best ways when they explore the basement or try to make contact or go after a mysterious guest.  And when the time comes for the big scares, man, they’re big and graphic and scary and earned, because the movie took the time to build up to them.


So it works.  It all works.  The Innkeepers is as fine a modern ghost story as you’re going to find, and I dare you to try and go right to sleep just after switching it off.  As for me, I wish I hadn’t seen it in a hotel.

The Orphanage

Walking out of THE ORPHANAGE, I thought, "That's the best
horror movie I've seen since THE OTHERS!"

Like THE OTHERS, THE ORPHANAGE is an example of the fact that axe
murderers and fake intestines aren't scary. Atmosphere, acting, and
music are scary (Yes, I did just spend five minutes trying to find a
synonym for "music" that starts with the letter A. I'm a nerd.).

Here's a movie that knows that the reveal isn't the scary part. It's
the involvement in the characters, the foreboding, the slow burn
that's the scary part (There's an essay in there about great horror
movies as great lovemaking and slasher films as a wham-bam in a
bathroom stall, but I'm not in the mood to write that tonight.). But
when you can make those three elements happen, then deliver on the
horrific climax and note-perfect denoument, why, you've got yourself a
winner. The ORPHANAGE does that, trusting itself and audience enough
to take its time, work the burn, and come through when it matters.
What a picture.

Below

It's WWII. We're aboard an American submarine on patrol in the North Atlantic. Bruce Greenwood is the skipper. So far, so good.

The sub picks up three survivors of a sunken hospital ship and, before you know it, things get bad. So does the movie.

BELOW, you see, is a "ghosts on a sub" movie. It's a terrific premise, one that promises a combination of claustrophobia and creeping horror. Unfortunately, the film is happy to settle for jump scares, sound effects, and confusion. Greenwood lazily channels Sam Neill in EVENT HORIZON, and the rest of the cast can't even keep up with that.

What a disappointment.

The Innocents

THE INNOCENTS rises or falls on Deborah Kerr's performance. Her role requires earnestness, thoughtfulness, conviction, courage, and perhaps a touch of madness. If she can pull it off, the movie is a winner. Unfortunately, she can't.

Kerr harrumphs, goggles, and screams her way through the picture. She so distanced me from the action that my greatest fear was that she'd tire of chewing the scenery, chew her way through my screen, and go for my throat. The movie looks great; its children are perfect; it sounds wonderful; and it has a snappy script. If only they'd hired a better actress, they could've had a classic on their hands.