The Innkeepers (2012)
Directed by Ti West
During the final days at the Yankee Pedlar Inn, two employees determined to reveal the hotel's haunted past begin to experience disturbing events as old guests check in for a stay.
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What critics compared The Innkeepers to
Cinematographer and West collaborator Eliot Rockett (see “The Innkeepers”) evokes a late 70s vibe, corresponding well with the juke-box soundtrack of clever needle drops.
Far from the slow burn storytelling of his last three horror features, House of the Devil, The Innkeepers, and The Sacrament; X is a balls-out sexy slasher that recalls his earliest work and proves that the much-maligned subgenre still has potential to surprise after over forty years of exploitation.
West, the director of similar throwback material such as "The House of the Devil," and the more subtle "The Innkeepers," has a stylistic sense that goes past bent all the way to creased (he seems like the sort of fellow who has committed every shot in "The Hills Have Eyes" to memory), and a way to tease out amusing character interplay between otherwise standard genre types.
West also wrote X’s screenplay, and he avoids the same mistakes he made in The House of the Devil (2009) and The Innkeepers (2012), which rely too heavily on stylistic homage and self-awareness to be fully immersive.
Considering that sequels to The Texas Chain Saw Massacre are still being cranked out, writer-director Ti West ( The House Of The Devil , The Innkeepers ) shows guts in reframing many images from Tobe Hooper’s 1974 classic early in X .
When not acting himself, Ti West writes and directs his own work — notably the 2011 film The Innkeepers — as well as television episodes of “Scream” for MTV and “The Exorcist” for Fox.
West's Devil, which followed its female protagonist, Samantha, through an evening of house-sitting, created rising tension out of banal incidents (discordant family photos, unopened doors, a pizza delivery) that weren't particularly menacing by themselves but, imbued with sinister, uncanny implications, made for a suffocating slow-burn.
Of the two major theatrical releases he's been involved in (2009's House of the Devil and this film), he starts Pied Piper-ing you, easing you into a world that just isn't quite right.
AUSTIN — Following his grindhouse-loving House of the Devil with a ghost film that could have been mainstream in the ‘80s, Ti West exhibits less stylistic fetishism with The Innkeepers while remaining solidly outside of contemporary fashions.
In "The Innkeepers," West moves from the icky exploitation zone of "Devil" into a friendlier, mid-'80s vibe; up until near the end, in fact, you could mistake it for a low-key haunted-house comedy.
We go to movies like The Innkeepers, Ti West’s follow-up to his delightful old-school creep-out The House of the Devil , to explore and experience fear from a similarly safe remove.
In The Innkeepers, writer/director Ti West’s first true project since his acclaimed 80’s retro horror film The House of the Devil, a pair of likeable slacker clerks, Claire (Sara Paxton) and Luke (Pat Healy), are left in charge of the Yankee Pedlar Inn on its last weekend of business.
…his aim was to put his own spin on the classic "haunted hotel" trope like "The Shining," "1408," and "The Innkeepers" before it.
Her film sits among other recent works by genre purists, including Ti West’s House of the Devil (2009) and The Innkeepers (2012).
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The throwback horror genre has been percolating for years in art houses - most notably with talented young Ti West's "The House of the Devil " and "The Innkeepers."