So I'm going to try my hand at reviewing movies, specifically horror movies. I'm a huge fan of horror, I did a degree in conceptual and creative film, and I really should start contributing to the SG community. Many of you may have already seen I do quick one line reviews on IG, maybe I could expand that on here? Let's see.
So the first movie I'm going to review is The Innkeepers. This film confused me a bit, for starters I went into it quite excited. I'd heard good things, people said it was quite scary, and Ti West did House of the Devil which I really enjoyed. The concept was interesting, the reviews were claiming it's one of the scariest ghost stories in recent years. My body was ready.
I sat there, patient, enjoying what was on screen but not like I expected to. I enjoyed it in the same way I enjoyed Clerks, minus the comedy. The dialogue was good, the character development good, the hints at something else going on were there. This continued for an hour. An hour!! And then suddenly, horror. It's like the crew went "oh shit, we forgot about the horror... quick, blood peril ghosts". A 95 minute film in which 35 minutes was actual horror and the rest, pure character development. Sure said development was slick and well acted, the movie is certainly charming. But it wasn't scary.
There were obvious jump scares, most of which are red herrings. There was a little dialogue about the ghost, and "don't go there" warnings. I love building up to the scares, but you need to show the audience what they should be scared of first. Show us something horrible, and then spend an hour building up to it, creeping around, make us go "Oh shit it could be down that dark corridor!!" Instead we had two people creeping around a hotel with no context as to why we should be worried about them, beyond "this place might be haunted".
Don't get me wrong, the movies isn't bad. It just isn't good either. I'm glad I caught it on NOW TV and didn't buy the BluRay, that would've pissed me off. If you love ghost stories, watch it. There's some elements that delight, the acting is great, like I said it's not a bad movie. But if you want to be scared, don't bother. Actually I think I just realised... this is a training movie!! It's a horror film for people who don't like horror films because they get scared.
There we go. The Innkeepers is a fantastic movie to show someone who is terrified of ghosts but really wishes he/she could watch ghost films. Like training wheels on a bike.
Pete