The Innkeepers (5/10): A haunted story that never haunts

“If you expect nothing from people, then you go through life being pleasantly surprised.”

Perhaps the fact that I went into this film with high expectations is the reason why I ended up feeling disappointed. I should’ve taken the hotel employee’s advice and not expected much from it and perhaps then I could’ve been pleasantly surprised. Although I hadn’t seen a film from Ti West, I had heard great things about him (and I did enjoy You’re Next, a film he had a supporting role in). It had also been well received by critics when it was first released and I can see why West’s visual style was appealing. There are some great shots and he takes his time to slowly build the atmosphere, but after having seen The Conjuring we learned that it’s possible to do those things while also being frightening. My greatest complaint is that this haunted hotel tale isn’t scary at all and it never unsettled me. There were perhaps two slightly disturbing scenes, but there wasn’t more than that so I found it hard to identify with the main protagonist’s fear. I had no problem with the slow pace because I actually enjoy it when they take time to build the characters, but the fact that the film never goes anywhere interesting was a downer. In the end it was just another ordinary and predictable ghost tale that simply told its story in a rather unconventional slow pace. 

The film begins with an establishing shot of the Yankee Pedlar Inn, a hotel that has been operating for more than a century. Business hasn’t been going too well as more and more claims of the hotel’s haunted past has affected its attendance. Only two employees remain for the final weekend that the hotel will stay open, and before it shuts its doors forever Claire (Sara Paxton) and Luke (Pat Healy) are determined to find evidence of the haunting. We learn from their interaction with each other that a guest named Madeline O’Malley committed suicide in the hotel years ago and in order to avoid the bad press the owners decided to hide the body in the basement. They are convinced that it is her ghost that is scaring off the guests. Currently only two people are staying in the hotel: a mother with her son and a former actress named Leanne (Kelly McGillis ) who is in town for a conference. It isn’t long before Claire finds evidence that the hotel is haunted indeed. 

The Innkeepers never works as a horror film because the hauntings never deliver scares, but many have appreciated it more for the relationship between the two co-workers. They feel like authentic and real characters and the movie does take its time to build that relationship. Paxton an Healy deliver solid performances, although Paxton gives somewhat of a campy performance at times. There are some inconsistencies with the characters and the things they say and do. For instance, Claire is warned by Leanne not to go to the basement and then a few scenes later both of them go into the basement to explore it. Leanne makes contact with these spirits in the hotel and refers to them as “they,” but the only evidence of the hotel being haunted at the moment is Madeline’s ghost and the film never explores what Leanne was referring to. Lena Dunham also has a supporting role here but her character is underused and that entire scene between her and Paxton could’ve been deleted from the film. There were several scenes like that one that never really went anywhere and didn’t seem to do anything to build the story. 

How much are your values worth?

“Let’s keep this going. What do you want me to do next?”

As the title suggests, director E.L. Katz delivers some cheap thrills in this extremely dark comedy which begins as a standard down on his luck tale of a family man trying to survive through the recession after losing his job and receiving an eviction notice. The first half of the film (my favorite part) slowly builds up the tension while gradually getting darker as we approach the final act. There is a saying in my country which translated goes something like this: “For money, the monkey dances,” and that is what first time screen writer David Chirchirillo is exploring in this black comedy: to what extremes is someone willing to go for monetary gain. Are our values worth negotiating with in exchange for money? This theme is richly explored in Cheap Thrills through two characters (played by Pat Healy and Ethan Embry) who meet a rich married couple (Sara Paxton and David Koechner) in a bar and begin playing an innocent dare game. The couple offer them money in exchange for them doing a series of dares involving drinking a shot of tequila, punching the security guard in the face, and so on. Of course we all know that this is going to escalate quickly into something much darker as they begin paying the consequences for their action, and it does. Cheap Thrills has all the right ingredients to become a cult favorite for some audiences, but it just didn’t work that well for me as things began to get darker. 

What I appreciated the most about this film is that it plays out perfectly as sort of an allegory of our society’s obsession over reality TV shows in which we are offered an opportunity to get rich by simply competing against each other in a series of dares. It actually is spelled out during one scene where Fear Factor is mentioned and this is exactly what the film is trying to get at. As we are judging these characters for how inhumane the series of dares are turing into, it all of a sudden puts a mirror into our society’s obsession over reality TV shows similar to Fear Factor. I think that if the film would’ve come out some 7 years earlier it would’ve been more effective because those shows have become a bit outdated. It also shows how we are always competing with our friends to become more successful than the other, and the way we justify our actions even though we know our behavior was dubious. The film reminded me a lot of Saw where the rich couple take on the role of Jigsaw as they get a kick out of watching their victims compete for money (instead of their lives). The clever difference is that this time their victims voluntarily place themselves in this situation as victims of their circumstance and so the game begins. But then during the second act it slowly identifies more with darker and gory horror films such as Hostel which was where I began losing interest. 

The performances in this film are solid. At first I found David Koechner to be over the top, but everything begins to make sense as you stick with the premise. His wife, played by Sara Paxton makes for an interesting character despite not doing much. Just the way she is gazing at everyone with her beautiful eyes, it becomes obvious that she isn’t someone you can fully trust. Ethan Embry and Pat Healy are convincing as the out of luck old school buddies who bump into each other at a bar. The film focuses on establishing their relationship first and then it slowly progresses into portraying each other’s flaws. There aren’t any likable characters in this film, but they all deliver strong and engaging performances nonetheless. If you like you films dark and nasty then Cheap Thrills might just be your thing, but it just wasn’t for me despite appreciating some of the things it was saying about our society.

My Review: Shark Night (6/10)

¨Terror runs deep¨

Shark Night is a terrible movie, I have to admit it, but somehow I ended up having a fun time with it. The performances are low key, the script borderlines in the ridiculous, and the story is really predictable, but in the mist of all the disaster I found myself having an enjoyable experience. Shark Night is a movie that takes its subject matter very lightly, it doesn`t try to be a serious horror film, or even try to show a lot of gore or being scary. It’s a movie that recognizes its limitations and plays along with it. What makes this bad movie stand out from the rest is that it ends up being bad in a good way, in other words it makes you laugh because it`s so bad. The plot is so bad that it seems that director David R. Ellis decided to just play along with the audience and let us have a good time without having to make the film gory or extremely violent. He gives us a lot of sharks, a lot of kills, and if taken lightly like the producers want you to you might end up having a good time like I did. If you are expecting a scary movie with a lot of gore than I warn you stay away from Shark Night because it`s just a light comedy with some bad acting and bad special effects. If you go into this movie expecting nothing else than that, just like I did, then you might end up having a decent time. One thing is for sure: screenwriters Will Hayes and Jesse Studenberg won’t be winning any awards for their dumbed down script.

It`s time to explain my least favorite part of the film: the plot. Shark Night takes place in a lake near the Louisiana Gulf coast (yes you read right, there are sharks in a lake and there is a perfectly good reason for that). A group of teenagers decide to go to Sara`s (Sara Paxton) lake house to celebrate Malik`s (Sinqua Walls) recent success in an exam that will allow him to enter college. His friends Nick (Dustin Milligan) and Gordon (Joel David Morse) were the ones who helped him study so in order to thank them he brings them along although they aren`t part of the cool group. At the house Malik plans to propose to his girlfriend Maya (Alyssa Diaz). Beth (Katharine McPhee) and Blake (Chris Zylka) also decide to go along with the rest of the gang and have some fun at the lake. Before arriving to the house however they have a small quarrel with a pair of local hillbillies Red (Joshua Leonard) and Dennis (Chris Carmack) with whom Sara is acquainted with, but everything goes on as normal. At the lake they meet the Sheriff, Sabin (Donal Logue), who greets them warmly and even has a couple of drinks with them. The kids are ready to have a great time and begin enjoying the lake, but what they don`t know is that the lake is infested with sharks. What begins as innocent fun, ends up being a nightmare for Sara and her friends.

The actors are all relatively unknown and there is a good reason for that (they aren`t exactly great actors), but you can`t have a shark film without hot young teens. The movie really works better as a comedy than as a horror film because the plot is just ridiculous, but I did have a fun time with how the shark attacks were exaggerated. There was one scene were a shark jumps several feet over the water and eats one of the kids that is riding a motorbike. These sharks were just so exaggerated that you couldn’t help but laugh at the silliness of each scene. There are several more death scenes like this which are hugely exaggerated and I found quite funny. There is no gore because Shark Attack had a PG-13 rating so don’t expect much of the death scenes from the Final Destination producers. I haven`t seen the Piranhas film so I can`t make comparisons with it, but I heard this is nothing like the gore that film had, so if you want a stronger  film or expect something like Piranhas then skip this film because you will be disappointed. Shark Night has nothing memorable to it, but I did have a surprisingly good time with it so I got to give it a passing grade, although the lowest possible one.

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