Despite its slow pace, "The Innkeepers" manages to keep audiences engaged. The film focuses on dorky hotel employees Claire (Sara Paxton) and Luke (Pat Healy) as they work the last weekend at the spooky Yankee Peddler Inn. The inn is closing for good on Monday, so this is Claire and Luke's last chance to find proof that the hotel is haunted. Luke's previous encounters prompted him to create a website and record any of the hotel's strange happenings. Claire begins to document bizarre occurrences like a piano playing by itself. Inspired by her findings, she works harder to find more evidence and makes contact with the hotel's spirits with the help of one of the inn's last remaining customers, Lee (Kelly McGillis). Lee's healing psychic abilities are the perfect aid to Claire, whose quest is not just to find ghosts, but also herself.
Sara Paxton plays Claire as an accessible but unconventional lead. Her looks — too childlike to be glamorous — break from Hollywood's usual standards for female characters in horror films. Claire's adolescent looks betray her transitional state. "I'm kind of, like, in between stuff," she says when asked what comes after her hotel employment ends. This uncertainty about the future provides most of the characters' motivation throughout the plot and reflects the fear of the unknown that permeates the film. The film is deliberately paced with relatively few but well-constructed scares.
If you're planning to take a date out to "The Innkeepers," its slow pacing may be to your advantage. The movie is thrilling enough to induce some fearful snuggling in the theater but sparse enough to let your attention wander to the body next to you, making "The Innkeepers" a remarkably good date movie.
Unlike classic haunted house movies, "The Innkeepers" maintains a sense of realism. Claire's asthma is both terrifying, with gasping breaths making the audience itself feels asphyxiated, and a great source of tension; after each scare she goes straight for the inhaler and anesthetizes herself and the audience. Once she can breathe, the audience knows it's OK. The film smartly manipulates our emotions, unlike recent torture porn films, such as those of the "Saw" franchise.
"The Innkeepers" is clearly aware of its connection to previous horror films. There are cinematographic references, such as askew camera angles and lighting changes similar to those in "Amityville Horror"(1979) and "The Shining" (1980). There are also explicit references in the dialogue to these films.
When Lee is introduced, one cannot help but wish she were Jamie Lee Curtis instead. The irony of Curtis, who's early career labeled her as a "scream queen," would have created the perfect tension for the film. Kelly McGillis instead reminds the audience of one of the many TV movies or series she's had minimal roles in.
One wonders how an actress manages to be so ubiquitous and yet so forgettable. This is not to discredit "The Innkeepers" because of its low budget — McGillis' casting is really the only part of the film in which more money could have helped. Unlike "Paranormal Activity" (2009) or "The Blair Witch Project" (1999), "The Innkeepers" thankfully doesn't read as a low budget project.
As a movie, "The Innkeepers" is good, but it's not a great film by any stretch of the imagination. Horror fans will appreciate its adherence to genre cliches without being entirely boring or formulaic. While thrilling, this movie isn't scary enough to rob more than two hours of sleep from any viewer. The best part of the film is its handling of Claire's inability to move on to the next stage of her life — a problem that many Jumbos can understand.
