HGTV Horrors

One of my favorite surprise watches of the last decade of straight-to-wherever-but-not-the-theaters horror is YellowBrickRoad, a film that crashes its landing but serves as a strange, creepy treat up to its last few minutes. One half of that directing team went on to make today’s feature. My expectations were high. 

Quick Plot: Simon (YBR's Richard Dreyfuss stand-in Alex Draper) is a chronic house flipper separated from his city-dwelling, anxiety-ridden wife and their slightly mischievous but good-hearted 12-year-old son Finn. After Finn does some unsupervised cell phone digging, Mom sends him out with Simon to a newly acquired Vermont country cottage for the summer. 

Hoping to renovate the long-empty house into a three-person family home, Simon delves into his project and bonding with Finn. The pair grows closer as they learn some of the odd tics of the house, and even more so once a nervous alcoholic electrician neighbor briefs them on its strange history.

It seems the last occupant was a lonely woman named Lydia who may have been responsible for shoving her husband and son into a deadly piece of farm equipment, Fargo-style. For the rest of her life, Lydia sat in the upstairs window, motionlessly watching neighborhood children...who eventually discovered the reason for her inaction was because she'd been dead for years. 

Happy housewarming!

While spunky Finn is initially thrilled at the possibility that his new home is haunted, the excitement wears off quickly when father and son meet the titular ghost. There's no denying that something is very, very wrong, and Simon wastes no time or dad points in sending Finn on the next bus home, vowing to somehow overcome Lydia's spirit while also doing some serious fixer upping.

Running at just 77 minutes, The Witch In the Window is kind of what I wanted Ti West's disappointing The Innkeepers to be: an eerie, entertaining ghost story that does a lot with a little. Draper and young actor Charlie Tacker are a warm, likable father-son pair, and it's easy to become invested in the fate not just of their lives, but of their relationship. 

Written, directed, edited, scored, and probably catered by Andy Mitton, The Witch In the Window is an intimate film that wisely zooms in on just one set of characters and the horrors they face. I'm not always the biggest fan of restrained ghost stories, often because tension can turn to tedium. The Witch In the Window avoids this fate, possibly because it wastes none of its brief running time. This isn't the scariest movie of its ilk, but it's involving, creepy, and immensely satisfying.

High Points

Simon isn't really winning any father of the year trophies, but he makes all the right decisions when confronted with danger, something incredibly refreshing in a genre that often fails this type of challenge

The Haunting of Hill House has made me look for hidden ghosts in every corner of any TV screen, and The Witch In the Window gives you plenty of eye candy in that regard

Low Points

Honestly, there’s nothing this movie lacks. Sure, I could have used more of Lydia’s history, but at its breezy under-80-minute length, anything more might have robbed the film of its perfectly sized punch

Lessons Learned

People don't go to Vermont for the oysters

Banishment means you have to go somewhere with nothing

Never double down on a good burn

Rent/Bury/Buy

The Witch In the Window is a perfect justification for an on-sale Shudder subscription. It's a small, strong little thriller that you won't find on the other services, and its unassuming packaging would have made it easy to look past in a vast video catalog. It won’t sit with me with quite the same heft as YellowBrickRoad, but it’s well above average for a straight-to-streaming genre film you’ve probably never heard of. 

Master of the Pedlar's Inn

Oh fiddlesticks. I really wanted to like The Innkeepers. Actually, based on my adoration for Ti West's House of the Devil and my genuine belief that he was responsible for the good parts of the not really that good Cabin Fever 2, I wanted to LOVE The Innkeepers.

Sigh.

Quick Plot: The Yankee Pedlar Inn is a quaint little historical hotel about to close its doors forever. On its last weekend in business, clerks Claire (Last House On the Left's Sara Paxton) and Luke (Pat Healy) decide to pull some Ghosthunters action and see if they can find any genuine evidence of its supposed supernatural guests. Along the way, they kinda sorta help out the natural guests: an aggravated single mom with her young son, a mysterious old man, and a former sitcom star (Stakeland’s Kelly McGillis).

What follows is some chipper banter between Claire and the nerdy Luke, followed ever so slowly by the confirmation that yes indeed, there’s a ghost afoot at the Pedlar Inn. Much like House of the Devil, the film’s style is to charm us with its lead before subjecting her to all sorts of scary movie hijinks…at the last possible minute.

I hate being this kind of person when discussing film, but here goes:

The Innkeepers is no House of the Devil.

Now in most worlds, this would be more than fine. No director should spend his or her career making the same film over and over again (helLO Tim Burton), but the issue is that The Innkeepers feels like it’s trying so hard to BE The House of the Devil with a softer edge. It’s not just the concept of the film being a throwback to late ‘70s genre style; it’s that the pacing and characterization feel directly cut from the same fabric, just dyed a different color or some other analogous comment. There’s even a Greta Gerwig stand-in (Lena Girls Dunham as a chatty barista) tossed in for comic relief.

So logic would dictate that if you liked The House of the Devil, you’ll like The Innkeepers…but I didn’t. I didn’t because it wasn’t ever dark enough to be genuinely scary, nor could it ever find its solid footing as comedy. The climax happens in 10 minutes (I know—just like HotD) but for me, it simply did nothing.

As an hour-long Masters of Horror episode, The Innkeepers would have worked great. Perhaps it will age well in ten years as a sort of underrated good genre film that people expected the wrong thing from the first time around. I won’t rule that out. I just also have no desire to rewatch it soon and make that decision.

High Notes

Much like Jocelin Donahue’s one-woman show in House of the Devil, Sara Paxton finds the perfect notes to make Claire likable, cute, and sympathetic

You know how annoyed I get when horror films make obvious and forced homage to older classics? (i.e., look at how I named my characters Romero and Carpenter!). Hence my utter glee when Luke informs Claire that he took Room 216 and she responds “Of course.” Now anyone with a passing familiarity to The Shining will deduce Room 216 gives a comfortable closeness to Room 217 and can get the joke without another word of explanation. THIS is how you honor a past film

Low Notes

The utter disappointment I felt watching something mediocre and unambitious from a director that I know can do better

Lessons Learned

Saying I love you on IM is like saying it during sex

Psychic conventions are generally held in small Pennsylvanian towns

Never skimp on bread. You’ll always regret it

Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa????? Moment of Me Watching the Film

I was eager to explore IMDB because I thought the little boy was played by the same child actors as Lysa Aryan’s 6-year-old-and-still-happy-to-be-breastfed son on Game of Thrones. Sadly, he is not, but GUESS WHAT? The character’s mother? Gina from the early ‘90s era Sesame Street. I have no idea how to feel about that, other than glad she’s not breast-feeding her too-old son

Rent/Bury/Buy

It’s easy to blame my disappointment with The Innkeepers on expectation. But if Ti West was worried that people would be disappointed with Not The House of the Devil, then why make a film that carries so much of The House of the Devil into every frame? Anyway, this is, as you would expect, decently made, affectionately scored, and well-acted. It just did not work for me in the least. I’d love to hear people tell me I’m wrong, so if there’s something I didn’t get, go head and give it to me. Especially if it’s loaded with cheese. I’m really hungry.