7 Horror Movies With Creepy Urban Legends
2. Ti West Was Supernaturally Drawn To Make The Innkeepers
Just like the story of the movie, The Yankee Pedlar Inn isn't your average hotel, and has real ghostly urban legends behind it. Plagued by mysterious events that director Ti West was thrust into the heart of, he decided to film the movie after work on The House of the Devil saw them stay at the infamous hotel. Whilst there, they experienced all kinds of phenomena, as West elaborated on in an interview with IndieWire:
"I’ve definitely seen doors close by themselves; I’ve seen a TV turn off and on by itself; lights would always burn out in my room. Everyone on crew has very vivid dreams every night, which is really strange. "
And when they returned to film The Innkeepers, all of the experiences that informed his decision to shoot this new movie came flooding right back. Dreams were recurrent, a ghostly vibe permeated through the place, actor Sara Paxton would wake up thinking others were in the room with her - and plenty more. Most strangely, the phone would always be ringing with no one else on the line.
West made the most haunted room in the movie The Honeymoon Suite, which turned out to coincidentally be where everything kicked off for The Yankee Pedlar Inn in the first place as it's where the original owner died.
Was he supernaturally drawn to make the movie? He's said himself that "the place let them be there", so perhaps it wanted its story to be told on the big screen by him in particular. In any case, the hotel's haunting presence has made its impression on the paranormal community pretty firmly.