The Innkeepers Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		4.0
Audio		4.5
Extras		2.5
Overall		3.5

The Innkeepers Blu-ray Movie Review

The return of the slow-burn horror film.

Reviewed by Casey Broadwater April 16, 2012

Ti West had helmed a few previous films--including a disastrous sequel to Cabin Fever that he's since disowned--but the young director first found himself in the indie horror spotlight after his 2009 satanic-panic thriller, The House of the Devil. Set during the 1980s and shot to actually look like some long-lost VHS relic from the Reagan era, the film stands out from the endless recent parade of glossy sequels and slasher reboots as something fresh, if not exactly new. West's aesthetic is all about going back to the fright film basics, with slowly mounting tension and stories set in locations that immediately put you ill at ease. In House of the Devil, it's the titular house, a creepy old estate way out in nowheresville...at night...on the eve of a lunar eclipse. And for his latest film, The Innkeepers, West takes us for a creepy weekend getaway at the Yankee Pedlar Inn, the kind of historical, supposedly haunted New England hotel that you'd see featured on an episode of Ghosthunters. You know the sort--shabby colonial-period decor, chintzy polyester bedspreads, and a violent, bloody, tragedy-ridden past. Cue the sound of a slowly creaking door-hinge...

The 100-plus-year-old Yankee Pedlar is going out of business, and only two guests have booked rooms for the closing weekend--a wife who's run away from her abusive husband, and aging TV star-turned-crotchety psychic Leanne Rease-Jones (Kelly McGillis). This leaves plenty of downtime for the sole remaining employees, spunky asthmatic Claire (The Last House on the Left's Sara Paxton) and Moby-lookalike Luke (Pat Healy), two unambitious townies who have the kind of friendship that's common among coworkers of the opposite sex, razzing each other and innocuously flirting, even if they'd never call it that. Claire is young but has no idea what she wants to do with her life, and Luke--a thirtysomething college dropout--is similarly aimless, though he's been slowly putting together a website chronicling the Pedlar's haunted history. This weekend is his last chance to gather material, but he doesn't seem too enthused. We get the sense that the whole project has been merely busywork, something to keep him occupied and distracted from the fact that he's got a literal dead-end job and no future prospects. Claire, however, is obsessed with Luke's alleged encounter with the hotel's legendary ghost--a jilted bride who hung herself in one of the rooms at the turn of the century--and armed with a microphone, a pair of headphones, and a portable tape recorder, she's determined to capture evidence of the paranormal.

Like The House of the Devil, The Innkeepers is slow-burning and almost obstinately old-fashioned. West forgoes the near-constant jump scares and vivisectional gross-outs of most contemporary fright pics in favor of a more measured pace, with gradually wound-up tension and only occasional spectral chills. In fact, the first half of the film is more about the horrors of a mundane job than any supernatural scares. (The movie's tagline is even "A Ghost Story for the Minimum Wage.") As Claire and Luke deal with the guests' demands and skirt around the obvious--that they kinda like each other--West establishes a surprisingly comic tone, the stuff of awkward glances, bored-to-death front desk banter, and chugged beers. This is fun--especially since Paxton and Healy have such a great onscreen connection--but the outright humor also has the effect of lowering the dramatic stakes. Horror and comedy are notoriously tricky to balance, and I would've preferred it if The Innkeepers had shifted just a bit more toward the serious side.

Don't get me wrong; the film eventually--key word--gets deadly serious. In the third act, a decrepit and depressed old man checks into the Pedlar alone, asking to be placed in the suite where he once spent his honeymoon, and I don't think it's a spoiler to say that yeah, nothing good comes of that. Claire's EVP investigations turn up some spooky results too, and in typical horror movie fashion, she refuses to heed the psychic's warnings to STAY OUT OF THE CELLAR. Needless to say, all hell inevitably breaks loose, and when it does, The Innkeepers will have you holding your breath, pounding the arm of your La-Z-Boy with one hand and resisting the urge to cover your eyes with the other. For those expecting scares around every corner, this might be too little too late--the film's terrors are slow in coming--but more patient horrorphiles will appreciate that West takes his time, letting us get to know the characters before he unleashes the evil supernatural force inside the hotel. Is it evil, though? Or even necessarily supernatural? The Innkeepers leaves some ambiguity about what Claire and Luke experience, letting viewers draw their own conclusions. I'll say no more.

In a genre overrun with torture porn and meta-movie irony, it's refreshing to see a horror film that shucks current trends and plays it simple, spinning an archetypal ghost yarn but keeping it current with recognizable 21st century characters. While The Innkeepers doesn't have the gravity of some of its cinematic forbearers--like The Innocents or The Changeling or The Others--it is solidly entertaining, a good Friday night spookfest if not quite a new classic for the horror canon.

The Innkeepers Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Ti West's last film, The House of the Devil, was such a 1980s homage that it even looked like a low-budget movie from the Reagan era, sporting a soft and grainy 16mm image. The Innkeepers, however, keeps it contemporary, with a 1080p/AVC-encoded transfer that's clean and detailed. The film was shot on 35mm and retains it's filmic texture here, with a thin but noticeable grain structure and a picture that's untouched by digital noise reduction or out-of-control edge enhancement. The image isn't razor sharp, but I'm not sure you'd actually want it to be; in any case, fine detail is easily visible in close-ups and the level of clarity is consistent throughout. Color is strongly reproduced too. This is a horror film, so there are times when black levels are intentionally heavy and obscuring, but contrast is spot on, skin tones are stable and warm, and the hues of the hotel interiors are dense without looking oversaturated. Overall, a great transfer, and one that isn't sullied by any encode issues or compression woes.

The Innkeepers Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

When you click "play" on the disc's menu, a text page pops up, recommending you play the film loud. I love getting that suggestion at the start of a movie--it's practically a guarantee that you're in for some excellent sound design. The Innkeepers delivers, with a lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 surround track that's optimized to creep you the hell out. The mix makes the most of the multi-channel presentation, using the full soundstage for pinpoint directional precision and subtle but effective cross-speaker movements. The rears play host to all kinds of bump-in-the-night noises--distant scratching and unexpected jolts, sudden gusts of wind and hissing static that morphs from white noise to something more eerily identifiable. Ghostly piano music drifts in the space behind your head. A train howls in the distance. Rain pours. Disembodied voices whisper from your left and right. To some degree, the sound effects really make the film. And I haven't even mentioned the deep subwoofer output that underscores the mounting tension. Or the score, with its big orchestral stabs and gliding string. Everything sounds rich and deep and punchy, especially if you follow the instructions and crank up the volume on your receiver. The dialogue throughout is well-recorded and easily understood, cutting cleanly through the mix, but if you need some help, the disc comes with optional English SDH subtitles.

The Innkeepers Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• The Innkeepers: Behind the Scenes (1080p, 7:28): A short piece that takes us on location at the real-life Yankee Pedlar.
• Audio Commentaries: The disc comes with not one, but two entertaining and informative tracks. In the first, Ti West, producers Peter Phok and Larry Fessenden, and 2nd unit director/sound guy Graham Reznick get into the nitty gritty of making the film. The second, featuring West and stars Sara Paxton and Pat Healy, is a lighter, more laugh-driven affair. If you like the film, both are definitely worth your time.
• Trailer (1080p, 2:10)

The Innkeepers Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

The Innkeepers takes its cue from classic ghost stories while upgrading the formula with a pair of contemporary characters--two aimless and ambition-less 21st century nerds, chained to their dead-end jobs. It's not as dread-inducing as Ti West's previous film, House of the Devil, but it's lighter and funnier while still packing in some good old white-knuckle scares. If you're a horror fan and you're not aware of West, you should be. He's one of the few genre auteurs going against the grain. The Innkeepers looks great on Blu-ray, sounds fantastic--with a lossless audio track that puts the bump in "bump in the night"--and arrives with two entertaining commentary tracks. Recommended.