A while back, I had a scary discovery of watching The House of the Devil , Ti West's enjoyable ode to seventies and early eighties horror flicks dedicated to the evil hazards of babysitting. It was a textbook to that type of historical filmmaking.
With the The Innkeepers, he's furthering his studies of that early eighties period. This time moving away from the slashers and studying the haunted house. "Do you know the story of Madeline O'Malley?" Sara Paxton, an employee of a New England hotel asks. A neighbor of Lizzie Borden, O'Malley was a woman who hung herself after her husband left her on her wedding day. Still upset, she haunts the halls of The Yankee Pedlar Inn waiting for her lover. Instead of taking her last paycheck and looking for a new job, Paxton decides to be a ghostbuster and find O'Malley with the help of a co-worker before the place closes. Drifting between rooms and hallways with microphones and headphones listening for whispers from the dead they hear more than a bump. What they see are things that look suspiciously like a film retrospective. The Shining, Amityville Horror, and Poltergeist are projected in different rooms. Old people and children are the top stars. There's a basement not to go into, but then one must. Ti West has put together a wonderful film fest. These ghost hunters will have their pick of top jobs for program directors after this clever idea is over.
Opening February 3, 2012, Verdict: Wait for the Critics
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