Starring Sara Paxton, Pat Healy and Kelly McGillis

Written and directed by Ti West

Second Sight, out now

The Yankee Pedlar Inn is closing down and only Claire (Sara Paxton) and Luke (Pay Healy) remain on staff. They have two guests and half a plan: to prove the Yankee Pedlar is haunted.

During the shooting of The House of the Devil, the crew stayed at the Yankee Pedlar and reportedly had some very unsettling experiences. That inspired West to write The Innkeepers, set at the Inn. It’s a typically impressive piece of work made all the more so by the ease with which West starts in one genre and finishes in another. The first half hour or so is closer to Clerks than The Haunting of Hill House, with Paxton and Healy playing like a post-millennial Randall and Dante. Healy’s slightly nervy, slightly off Luke is great but the core of the movie is Paxton’s work as Claire. Initially goofy and unfocused, Claire is us in every single retail job. Bored, uncertain of anything beyond she’s uncertain, making her own fun. There’s a notable scene with an early career Lena Dunham as a barista that really could be in a Kevin Smith movie and Paxton lands it all very well.

More so because as the movie curdles, so does Claire. The terrors are all slow burn until they aren’t, but by the time the ending hits you’re entirely on board, right with Claire as the lights flicker and, somehow, the piano plays. This is all helped even more by the sense of post-millennial ennui that suffuses the movie. This is The Breakfast Club where someone dies at the end, Empire Records where the store closes. The story Claire and Luke have told themselves they’re in is not the one they find themselves in and that makes the mounting horror all the more powerful. The presence of Kelly McGillis as a guest who is uniquely suited to help underlines this even further with her spiky compassion a neat contrast to the desperate cheer of the two hotel guests. None of them are good enough to solve the problem, all of them try and all of them come face to face with the impossible. How they deal with it is how we deal with it; untidy, complex and realistic.

Verdict: This is a great reissue of The Innkeepers from Second Sight, who also recently did The House of he Devil. It’s packed with interviews, there’s a new commentary from West, producers Larry Fessenden and Peter Phok and sound designer Graham Reznick. If you liked the X trilogy, or want an entry point to one of Western horror’s best current voices this is for you. 9/10

Alasdair Stuart