With the right accompaniment, a slow trudge down the hallway of any aging hotel can become the stuff of nightmares. That’s the simple, effective premise, with obvious nods to “The Shining,” in this ghost story from horror director Ti West (“The House of the Devil”).
It’s closing weekend at the rundown Yankee Pedlar, where bored employees Claire (Sara Paxton) and Luke (Pat Healy) aim to record some audiovisual evidence for Luke’s Web site about the inn’s haunted history: Long ago, a jilted bride hung herself, and the mortified owners stashed her body in the woodshed.
Looking like a bit of a ghost herself, gray-haired Kelly McGillis shows up as a — what else? — washed-up actress turned mystic. Her warnings to avoid the basement fall on deaf ears, as the plucky Paxton aims to “find out what that ghost’s f – – kin’ problem is.”
Are there gaping plot holes? Indeed. Are there stretches where nothing happens? Yes, but they sure do ratchet up the jumpiness. “The Innkeepers” is no masterpiece, but you may well leave with your nerves expertly jangled.