Hotel Dunsmuir

Here's a rather unusual micro budget outing. It can't really decide what genre it is, but maybe that's not a bad thing? The first part of the movie concerns itself with small town redneck life. What were the inspirations here? Maybe something like Coal Miner's daughter. It aims to show a day to day "white trash" life, with a few hints of the supernatural starting to sneak in. Perhaps the movie spends too much time on this at the start, but I didn't mind it.

It then changes into a different gear, when the Billie character steals her nasty husband's truck and drives to an old hotel that has a ghost in it. At this point the movie has some creepy parts and goes into a different direction. While not for everyone I enjoyed it.

I been watching horror movies for more than 64 years and this one falls into the second highest rating I have given horror movies as in a 9. I guess there was not that much killing actually shown, or maybe people were watching a different movie. I found the characters to be pretty close to what you would expect from a psychotic individual with a very young wife. "I've told you to call me daddy" while exhibiting (unknown to her) to his war buddies. The kind of low life now being focused on by a very recent movie. Turns out she has a limit of the abuse she is willing to take, which turns her courageous. Then there is the person she takes along. Really liked this movie.

While they clearly made this on a shoestring, there is some nice work on display here. The photography is often rich. The sets and backdrops are nice. The actors do a good job overall. There is a quirky factor which I liked. It's not all heavy and brooding. At times the film is playful. There are a few jumps which were nicely done. It created a mood, and felt like a throwback. There was a time I remember when horror movies were slower and not "that" intense. I'm fine with a slower paced spooky movie, in fact I prefer it to so many loud jumps. This scratched that itch.

I'd recommend Hotel Dunsmuir to someone looking for a slow spooky indie. For those that prefer modern studio horror, this might not be appealing. Definitely for fans of indies that are rough around the edges.

I suspect "Hotel Dunsmuir" will divide audiences pretty harshly, but I really liked it. Jen Jandreau plays Billie, a young women who is dealing with a seriously abusive husband. After a particularly unpleasant event, she finally gets up the courage to leave him and go stay with her grandmother.

During her travels she stays a night in Dunsmuir, California at a hotel named the "Hotel Dunsmuir." In an unfortunate coincidence, she runs into a friend of her husband and makes up an awkward excuse as to why she's alone. But during the night, weird, possibly supernatural events start to happen, and she decides to get away as quickly as she can. She also meets a fellow abuse survivor and agrees to take her along on the drive...

As I said, this movie is going to divide viewers. I'm calling it a "slow burn" but that doesn't really communicate how much of a slow burn it is. Part of what makes the movie work so well is Jet Jandreau, who is a revelation here -- she is enormously appealing in the role and gives the character enough emotional weight that we are really, actively rooting for her. That makes the scares and dangers more effective when they show up (and they do show up). And while there are a lot of times where it appears not much is happening, we know her rat of a husband is looking for her and there are sounds in the background that make the sequences really suspenseful.

It's not perfect, of course. Billie is a beautiful, smart, sweet, and pious woman. There's no indication of why she would abandon her life to go live in the sticks with this hideously abusive redneck. Some of the story resolution is probably going to be pretty obvious to viewers. And we have the old "important stuff happens in the poor light so we can't actually see what happened" issue that plagues so many low budget films.

But overall, it hit all the notes for me. As I said, serious slow burn territory so if that turns you off, this might not be the flick for you. But gets a pretty strong recommendation from me.

I am not much into horror, but have seen so many psychological thrillers. This one tops the list. The acting was superb. Jet Jandreau and Jose Rosete did tremendously well at the start of the film setting up the plot line throughout the entire movie. There were some elements I never expected. Much of the movie was shot in Siskiyou County, California, where I am from. This has become a great place to film movies, like Climb An Angry Mountain from 1970 and Baby Blue Marine in 1976. I look for more great movies to come from Jet Jandreau and others as Hollywood may now be in the shadow of Mount Shasta!

All of the actors in this film deserve a HUGE pat on the back in making it real suspenseful! Tell your friends about it!