3. The Innkeepers Killing Of Loveable Innkeeper
The Innkeepers is Ti Wests 2012 masterpiece concerning two (wait for it) Innkeepers (nailed it) who are watching over The Yankee Pedlar Inn on its last weekend of business. Claire and Luke are also budding ghost hunters who are trying to collect evidence regarding the ghostly remnants of Madeline OMalley, the requisite unfortunate soul. The Innkeepers is a great ghost story mainly because it spends so much time with its characters that you properly grow to love them and, eventually. These protagonists are not the annoying Sidney from Scream or the nameless, faceless and useless hipster from Paranormal Activity 4 (I was not watching that again to find out the name). No no no, these are characters whose struggles mirror our struggles in life, such as fighting with bin bags to get them in the bin or making the best of opportunities to get good and drunk at work. Thats why, when the film finally takes it sudden drop into trouser-filling horror, its not so much Madeline OMalleys liquorice stained teeth that haunts us as these two lovable fools dalliance with death. Claires endearing characteristics are the very things that spell her doom. Just try and imagine Ripley, Sidney or Katie in the same situation as Claire, it just doesnt work. Consider her downfall; it starts with her being lured to the basement with noises that would cause a me-shaped hole in the door. Rather than becoming exasperated at Claires stupidity for following the sounds, we understand that she is merely doing what she does, satiating her incredibly curious mind. Again when she falls to the bottom of the stairs and cannot bring herself to go near the man from the honeymoon suite we know that this aversion is partly informed by her funny-then scary-now aversion to nakidity (Copyright Me). Every single thing that leads to her demise has been so subtly planted into our understanding of the character that our terror is enhanced with every extra step that she makes.