The Inn

The snoopy reporter Jackie (Kelly Sue Roth) proposes the television producer Gilbert (Nitin Adsul) to investigate the small town of Buckeystown, Maryland, where in the last twenty years dozen of disappearances have occurred. Gilbert accepts and Jackie together with a cameraman drive to the local inn. Meanwhile, a young couple arrives in the inn since the husband will have a job interview in a video company of the town. Jackie interviews the reluctant locals and realizes that the common sense is that travelers and non-residents are abducted by UFOs in the haunted highway Route 180. However, she unravels a dark hidden secret from the elders of Buckeystown.

I am a fan of horror movies and also low-budget movies, but unfortunately "The Inn" is an awful mess. The concept of the dark story is not bad, with a small town that had serious difficulties in the past and the population to survive eats human flesh and becomes addicted insane cannibals, killing foreigners to satisfy their needs. However, the screenplay is completely dissociated between scenes and without a previous development (and even names) of the characters. The time-line is also confused, mixing day and night, i.e., in one scene it is day, and the next one it is night. The amateurish camera and lighting are terrible, using weird angles, and the edition is illogical. The unknown cast is reasonable, and the beautiful Kelly Sue Roth deserved a better make-up, since the DVD highlights the acne in her face. The movie seems to be dubbed in English, without the use of ambient sound. My vote is two.

Title (Brazil): "The Inn - Mistérios na Pousada" ("The Inn - Mysteries in the Inn")

While the film is a high-quality visually artistic expression from a relatively new director (Pepi Singh Khara) it never establishes a purpose and the viewer is often left wondering what is happening or where the action is even taking place. Too many attempts at a Hitchcockian style of shooting and too few establishing shots keep one guessing not "what's going to happen next?" but more often "what just happened?" An excellent score (provided by native Los Angelino and veteran composer Vincent Gillioz) helps compensate for the poor audio mixing and inconsistent dialogue volume. Performances from the relatively unknown cast range from passable-at-best to downright good and it's clear that there are a few rising stars among them. Although moving at a sluggish pace at times, the film finally comes to life when police are called to investigate a murder. The officers bring charisma and a much needed purpose to the film but sadly it is too little too late.

I've noticed several comments sort of said the same thing: "the director tended to focus more on creating visual artistry and thus story-telling, dialog suffered" (or similar words)... to which I'd like to offer this: perhaps the director, being an indy filmmaker was of the mindset, "I only have amateur actors, thus dialog / acting will be sub-par. Therefore I'll try to offset that with cool visuals, etc. " ? just a thought.

I haven't seen this film, but would like to see some of Mr. Singh Khara's work in the near future. I'm now just writing sentences because IMDb has this bizarre rule which won't allow me to post until I have enough sentences, but you see, i'm finished talking, so I'll just amble on...

The world premiere screening of THE INN was a memorable event. Pepi Singh Khara is clearly a genius on the way to the very big time as a world class movie producer.

There was quite a large turnout of people (not just VIPs, friends, paparazzi, reporters and movie industry people) for his premiere at the Tivoli Theatre. THE INN (2004 Frederick Films) is Pepi's second movie, following FAR FROM India (2002 Frederick Films). Pepi's skill as a cinematographer who moves his camera like a ballet star helped THE INN's success, and so did his casting of Baltimore Raven's former football cheerleader Kelly Sue Roth, who does a steamy, full undress bedroom love scene in the movie which made the audience gasp with delight.

Pepi didn't light the faces of his actors well but neither do lots of other independent film producers (see recent reviews I've written of indie movies which opened recently). Maybe indie movie producers have some sort of unwritten agreement to AVOID the classic cinematographer's use of a "Key Light" and a "Fill Light" when actor close ups occur. I dunno. But I like lit faces. So minus 1 point of my rating for that! But what do I know, because...

The audience loved the movie, regardless of the lack of lit faces for the actors.

It's only Pepi's second movie, and coming ones he plans will get better and better. Maybe he'll even use Key Lights and Fill Lights for actor closeups. I hope so.

Meanwhile, look at the (incredible) job Pepi did and does in selling his movies and getting big movie-house audiences and placement of his movies on cable TV and in Film Festivals. Check out his movie preview and look at its polish and wonderful detail and no wonder people go see his films.

The result of Pepi's job selling his movie opening was that the lower level was filled (about 700 people). The audience sat happy and attentive through the entire screening, and walked out smiling.

Film buffs pay attention to Pepi Singh Khara! And get to know his work! He's a movie maker who is definitely going to "happen" (nationally and probably internationally).

Remember how Samuel Goldfish, the glove salesman who became Samuel Goldwyn, the movie mogul? Well, Pepi Singh Khara is headed in the same direction!

Well, I'd have to say this film was too 'artsy' for the average public audience. There were lots of nifty shots and use of industry this-n-thats that were well done, but the story line(s) were a bit hard to follow. The average audience isn't interested in how spectacular the artistic view is... they want a story to follow and get wrapped up in. That was a bit hard to do here.

I understand this was a learning project for the director. However, viewers might be happier knowing that prior to watching the film. Most watchers probably will have expectations of something similar to the director's first feature film "Far From India" where there was an easy-to-follow story line with good dialog.

I have to say, though, that being a huge fan of thrillers, I did enjoy the visuals. They did entertain me. Had I not been into such a genre, I might have felt differently. But, there were some nice shots that looked exceptionally professional.

"The Inn" will probably do well on the industry circuit, as those venues look more for artistic creation and development. After all: to what are we comparing this film? To other independent film makers who have only made 2 feature films on a nil budget OR to the big guys with the 20 million dollar budgets whose movies we've been watching our entire lives?