The Innkeepers

This week in the corner we are going to take a look at Ti West's latest film...The Innkeepers.  Ti West gained notoriety a few years ago with his 80's homage The House of the Devil.  The Innkeepers is a similar film in style and scope and relies heavily on mood and ambiance.  The movie takes place at an old hotel in Connecticut called the Yankee Pedlar Inn.  The hotel is going out of business and we are with two employees on the final weekend of operation.  The catch to the whole thing is that legend says that the hotel is haunted and we are left with some of the typical bumps and spooks that come along with a haunted house movie.   Sara Paxton has the lead role and for me was the highlight of the movie.  She has a plucky and adventurous personality that lends to the need to explore the old spooky hotel.  Pat Healy plays the other hotel employee.  He is a bit older and owns the recording equipment used to find the paranormal entities a la Ghosthunters.  There are few extra characters sprinkled about the movie.  Lena Dunham from HBO's Girls has a one scene cameo.  A creepy old man checks into the hotel on the final night with strange requests and Kelly McGillis from Top Gun plays a sort of washed up actress who has now moved on to pursuing a psychic and holistic lifestyle that has influence in the rest of the haunts throughout the movie.  Regardless of how big of a role these extra characters play, they all seem to just be filler to the rest of the movie.  This is where many people will have problems with the film.  Ti West is meticulous with his movies.  Every shot, every camera angle, every character movement is done with a purpose and style.  His motives are to give his audience the same monotonous feeling as his characters. Much of the first two acts involve watching the employees working a graveyard shift in a practically empty hotel with not much to do besides surf the internet or listen for the supposed ghosts that haunt the halls of the Yankee Pedlar Inn.  This makes the first hour of the movie a pretty slow burn.  The movie is dialogue heavy and there are rarely more than two characters in any one given scene.  His intent is to try to build the anticipation and suspense that leads to the final 30 minutes of the grand finale.  If you are a fan of cinematography and art direction in movies I think you will enjoy the Innkeepers, the rest may just find it boring.  The final act does provide some real scares but the movie closes with a number of loose ends.  This movie isn't really gory, nor does it really have the cheap thrills of a Paranormal Activity.  The hotel is front and center along with what lurks in the hallways and basement.  The chance that something may happen at any moment is the draw.  Writing any more about the ending gives away too much because ultimately you should watch the movie and decide for yourself whether you think this movie is a masterpiece of suspense or just a slow boring haunted house movie.  If and when you watch it you should leave a comment at the bottom and let me know on which side of the fence you fall!

The Innkeepers can currently be streamed instantly on Netflix!

Next week I will be writing about one of the most controversial movies of all time.  Ruggero Deodato's Cannibal Holocaust.  This movie has been banned in over 50 countries and is only for the hardest of the hardcore.  See you next week!

V/H/S

This week in the corner, the first movie that I will "critique" on this blog is a movie called V/H/S.   I put critique in quotes because I am not writing this to give it a thumbs up or a go see it!  I am writing about movies that might be a bit polarizing in terms of how well they are received.  V/H/S is a movie that fits that bill.  I think there are some clever moments as well as some misses in this movie.  But part of the fun about horror is discussing those hits and misses.  V/H/S is a horror movie that follows an old genre trope known as the anthology.  The anthology horror movie is a standard 90 minute movie that is comprised of a series of short segments that are generally tied up somehow or someway by the finale.  George Romero probably made the most famous horror anthology with Creepshow over 30 years ago.  Trick 'R Treat is a fabulous representation of the anthology which came out around 2007 and does pretty much everything right.  V/H/S consists of 5 individual segments and a 6th segment that runs throughout the entirety of the movie.  Generally we call this segment the wrap-around.  The wrap-around is the glue that holds the anthology together.  In this film the wrap-around consists of a group of derelict boys who are hired to go to a house to recover a mysterious VHS tape.  When the boys get to the house they uncover a mountain of tapes without labels.  They begin to pop a few of them into the VCR and end up watching various found footage segments that lead to the rest of the movie.  Each of the 5 segments clock in at around 15 minutes and each have a different director.  For my money the strongest segments of the movie are the first and the last.  What makes these segments the best are the way the directors are able to jump right into their respective stories.  When you only have 15 minutes to work with, character development and backstory cannot be an important part of the short.  Otherwise we the viewers spend so much time trying get to know the characters and scenarios, that the payoff is generally always anti-climacitc.  In each of the bookend segments we follow a group of guys out for a party.  The motives of each of these groups end up being very different with equally different outcomes, but we know what we are doing and where we are going with these stories right from the beginning. Because of this we can spend more time with the spooks and scares.  The segments that fall flat are the ones that rely too much on backstory.  One of these segments has a young lady taking her friends to a cabin in the woods for a weekend. What her friends don't know is that she is actually using them as bait for a supernatural killer.  That is all well and good, but why is she using them as bait?  What are her ties to this supernatural killer?  These ideas are never really fleshed out so the viewer is left confused and unsure of what exactly just happened at the end of the 15 minutes.  Which leads me back to the wrap-around.  Anthology movies are usually measured on how well all of the individual segments are tied together.  This was my biggest problem with the movie.  I kept waiting for some big reveal on what this particular VHS tape had in store, or why were these kids sent to look for it in the first place?  These questions were never really answered and left me wanting a little bit more from the final product.  There were parts of this movie that I really liked and each segment and some pretty cool moments.  If you have ever had a fear of someone watching you sleep late at night, one of the segments will not do anything to make you feel better about your fear.  Anthology movies seems to be making a surge in the here and now.  Later this month The ABC's of Death is set to hit theaters.  The movie is set to contain 26 shorts where the title of each begins with...you guessed it!...each letter of the alphabet.  I have also heard that there is already a V/H/S 2 in the works and with a little tweaking to the first film,  the second could be a force in the horror anthology catalogue for years to come.  I think this type of horror continues to be made because of what it represents at some base level.  Almost everyone has sat around a campfire, a dinner table, or in your backyard and exchanged spooky ghost stories.  V/H/S and movies like it are the cinema version of the campfire ghost story.  Those short bite sized bits that leave you with a chill.  I say get the marshmallows ready!  V/H/S can currently be instantly streamed on Netflix or rented at a local RedBox.  Ultimately you should check out V/H/S on your own and leave comments below on the segments that you liked and the ones you didn't!  If you find yourself loving every minute of the movie, you should check out some of the other movies I mentioned above. (if you haven't already...)

Thanks for reading this week.  Again, leave comments below on your thoughts!  I would love to read them.

Next week I will be writing about the newest film from director Ti West....The Innkeepers!!!

The first post

So this is going to be my spot for those of you that want to read about, learn about, and get my opinions on a variety of horror movies.  Why would you want my opinions??  That's a good question I suppose.   All I can tell you is that I have seen hundreds of horror films.  Gory movies, slashers, zombie, exorcism, found footage, anthologies...you name it I have seen it.  Horror movies have a unique place in our culture.  People love to be scared.  They love to be grossed out.  Horror movies have been made for almost 100 years.  It is one of the few genres of movies that have been around since the dawn of film making.  People have and always will enjoy the feeling and rush of being scared. This will be the place to find out about some of the more obscure or controversial films out there.  If you are into horror, you have probably already seen movies like Halloween, A Nightmare on Elm Street, or maybe even Suspira and Evil Dead.  This is not the place for those movies.  I will try to have a new movie here once a week.  I will try to write about movies that are interesting and easily accessible from places like netflix or crackle.  But I will also write about movies for the truly dedicated fan or horror that are a little harder to find.  So I hope you will stop by my corner every week and read about something crazy and weird and maybe take a chance on a flick that hasn't been on your radar!

Next week's movie...V/H/S.