The Innkeepers

Directed by Ti West.

2011. Rated R, 101 minutes.

Cast:

Sara Paxton

Pat Healy

Kelly McGillis

Alison Bartlett

Jake Ryan

Lena Dunham

George Riddle

Brenda Cooney

John Speredakos

An old, stale hotel on the last weekend it will ever be in business, with only a few people around, seems as good a place as any for a good haunted house flick. ENGH! Wrong answer. At least in this case. I’m not sure there are any right answers in the 100 plus minutes we spend in this drab setting. By drab, I don’t mean anything remotely “haunting”, either. I just mean “bleh.”

Things start well enough, I guess. As mentioned, the Yankee Pedlar Inn is going out of business and the owner is wisely on vacation elsewhere. This means we’re stuck with the only two dweebs who work here, Clare (Paxton) and Luke (Healy). For some strange reason, they think they’re Akroyd and Murray back in 1984. Get it? Sigh…kids these days. They think they’re Ghostbusters! He-dweeb spends most of every day tap, tap, tapping on his laptop, designing his website based on “real” paranormal activity. She-dweeb mostly just believes whatever flies out of his pie-hole and agrees to try and record the ghosts in the hotel. By record, I mean audio only, not video. Huh? Whatever. Legend has it that, way back when, a bride hanged herself in one of the rooms because her brand new hubby abandoned her. Instead of using her apparently active afterlife to find that bum and haunt his ass, she knocks around the Inn occasionally going “Woooohhhh” and scaring the guests.

Hey, I've tortured myself once by watching this movie and twice by sitting down to write this review. Consider this your chance to stop reading now. You already know how I feel about this so-called film. Therefore, I’m going to do something constructive while I bang out a few more paragraphs. I’m attempting to take the art of onomatopoeia to new heights, just like this, boom. Didn't you notice ENGH? Bleh? Okay, at least you understood boom. No? Sigh. Grab a dictionary and look up onomatopoeia. Damn, you’re lazy. Just click here. See what I did there? I’m sorry, you’re not lazy, unless you are…screw it.

We left off on guests, right? Hmph, the only paying ones are a lady and her son. We learn she’s pissed at her hubby and punishing him by spending the weekend away. Ha! Judging from her demeanor I’ll bet he’s not feeling so punished. As for the boy, probably about 8, he gets a treat when he gets to see she-dweeb in her undies. Boing! Good for you, child actor. Now, don’t do drugs. Unfortunately for she-dweeb, after a frightening moment (for her anyway) sends her running to he-dweebs room she sees him in his undies. Ladies, trust me when I say this: gag!

Anyhoo, the lady and her son leave and an alcoholic, former actress, current medium arrives. Every haunted house flick has to have one of those. She’s in town for a people-who-talk-to-dead-people convention but of course, gets pulled into the goings on at the hotel. Right before just about every action she knocks back one of those small airline bottles of booze. A little later, some random old dude shows up and yes, he’ll become part of the happenings, also.

What are these happenings, you ask? Whenever she-dweeb is alone (they man the front desk in shifts), she starts hearing stuff knock or clank or wind howling or the piano in the lobby starts playing by itself. At some point during all the commotion, she yanks the recording equipment off the desk and mostly captures herself whimpering. Nice. She finally gets a noise other than from her own body, screams, runs and tells he-dweeb or drunk psychic and then…nothing. Between these scenes, our dweebs have completely inane conversations. Seriously, it’s like “Hey, look at my website and ghosts are real blah blah blah.”

“I totally believe you ‘cuz sometimes people see stuff and blah blah blah.”

Okay, movie, either kill them now or kill me. I’m begging. Hear that? That’s the sound of brain cells oozing out of my ear, splashing to their death on my shoulder so they no longer have to listen to this dreck. I should have known better. Our director, Ti West, also helmed the equally bad and equally overrated House of the Devil. If you see this man anywhere near a movie set, please have the nearest person call 911 then physically restrain him until the cops arrive.

Regardless of my feelings on the matter, The Innkeepers drones on. Sigh. You know the drill. Eventually, he-dweeb picks up on the fact strange crap is really happening and drunk psychic says ‘get out.’ I’m paraphrasing, of course. As for the random old dude, I’ll let you figure it out. Will she-dweeb and he-dweeb escape the dead bride? Will you give a flying fox fleeing from a flock of pheasants? Dun dun dun DUNNNNN!