DVD: The Innkeepers
One of the many things my long-suffering wife has long been suffering is my fascination with ghost stories and suspense movies that don’t quite work. I take a professional interest in figuring out what went wrong with a near-miss in the genres and can, I fear, go on and on about it, sometimes greeting the poor woman the moment the alarm goes off with something like, “The quality level of a ghost story is in inverse proportion to the number of its boo-scares.”
Last weekend, I watched The Inkeepers and, I’m not sure, but I think my wife may have moved out.
I so wanted to like this — even after I watched it and didn’t like it, I still wanted to like it. An old-fashioned ghost story set in an all-but-empty inn: exactly my idea of a good time. And there is more talent on display in this little picture than in half a dozen bigger and better ones. Ti West, who wrote and directed, is clearly bubbling over with natural ability. He has a delightful sense of character and sense of humor and a strong instinct for what is now called the “slow burn,” but was once called “storytelling.” Sara Paxton — who seems to only take parts in which she gets brutally raped, killed, eaten or all of the above — is not only incredibly adorable but a charming actress. And Pat Healy is terrific.
But the film just doesn’t work. I love a slow build-up — but it’s gotta be there for a reason. There’s not enough story here to justify the time taken to tell it. And those cheap boo-scares that turn out to be nothing — they’ve gotta go, each and every single one of them. And when the real scares do come, they’re only okay. Creepy enough to watch, but we’ve seen em before. And a real scare should be scary in conception so that it lasts after the movie is over. After this was over, I forgot it entirely.
Ah, yes. The unwilling suspension of disbelief. The horrible feeling that what you’re watching might be a more accurate depiction of reality than your “real” mundane life is.
Someone’s going to come up with an example to prove me wrong, but what to me made “The Sixth Sense” such a good movie was that I didn’t realize what was going on for much of the film. I didn’t guess the surprise until it was announced, and I hadn’t considered that that would be the twist. It was an idea I’d never seen before. Not really a scary movie, as far as I’m concerned: just a unique and interesting take on ghost stories.
The surprise was great, I agree – but if you watch the movie again, knowing the ending, it’s still very good… so I don’t think it was the surprise that made it work.
I remember watching Independence Day, and I couldn’t keep my eyes off of Margaret Colin (Goldblum’s ex-wife). I couldn’t figure out what it was about her. Then I realized: oh, yeah, she’s gorgeous. She’s not generic Hollywood beautiful like Vivica A. Fox; she’s just gorgeous.
The Sixth Sense is a great movie because it’s a great movie. It happens to be a great movie with an interesting ending, but the reason why the movie worked is that it had great writing, acting, cinematography, and everything else. It reminds me a lot of The Ususal Suspects, another movie that I didn’t even know what it was about until halfway through, and then got belted by the surprise. But I stayed in the movie the whole time. There are other movies with twist endings – it’s pretty easy to put something unexpected at the end of a movie. The genius is making the first 97% of the film utterly captivating.
Hey Andrew, have you seen Cabin int he Woods yet? If so, what are your thoughts? I found it interesting, but not quite fulfilling. Thought they could have done much better.
Have not seen it yet. Really have a hard time getting out to the movies because of workload, but I’ve heard really interesting things about it.
Hi, Andrew…just saw Lake Mungo based on your recommendation. I agree with you about the eerie atmosphere the film establishes, but I had the same problem with it that I had with The Innkeepers; namely, that it posed a lot of really cool and intriguing questions it didn’t answer. I like to think I’m not one of these people that needs everything spoon-fed to me, and I like it when a film like this leaves SOME questions unanswered, but the aforementioned two leave EVERYTHING unanswered; in other words, there’s no payoff. At all.
To my mind, a good ghost story is really a mystery, and a mystery needs a solution. In my opinion, the best ghost story ever put on film is 1978′s The Changeling with George C. Scott, a film I know you also admire. The ending of that movie doesn’t answer all questions, but it answers the important ones, and more importantly, the revelations are about the wages of evil perpetrated in THIS life instead of the next one.
It’s become a habit among filmmakers these days, especially independent filmmakers, to end their stories in ways that are inscrutably vague because it’s supposed to be somehow trendy or cool. I think it’s just lazy. A cool idea does not a story make. Ti West and Joel Anderson are obviously talented guys, but they need to go back and look at what made the classic horror films they’re trying to emulate truly timeless. It’s more than just mood. It’s story and character. It’s three acts and a true completion of those arcs. You don’t have to tell us everything guys, but please, tell us SOMETHING.
BTW, huge fan of KOC.
The new ghostrider movie isn’t exactly your typical haunted house ghost story but I recommend it.