Film

The Innkeepers

Name: The Innkeepers
Genre: Horror, Thriller
Released: 2012
Cast: Sara Paxton, Pat Healy, Kelly McGillis, George Riddle, Lena Dunham

Haunted-house horror

A quiet, character-driven haunted hotel film where two bored desk clerks spend their last week documenting the Yankee Pedlar's supernatural history—only to realize they may have invited something genuinely sinister to notice them. Methodical and atmospheric, it prizes slow-burn dread and the specificity of place over jump scares. For viewers who want to feel unsettled rather than jolted.

TMDb rating

2.7

If you liked this

The Shining1980

Kubrick's hotel of horrors moves like a nightmare, with every room and hallway becoming a character. It's the obvious ancestor, but it's obvious because it's flawless: dread constructed with patient precision.

But Glacially paced, and Kubrick's interpretation of the source material will infuriate King devotees. The performances are mannered in ways that deliberately distance you.

Mulholland Drive2001

Lynch builds a atmosphere of creeping wrongness in Los Angeles where nothing is quite what it seems. Like The Innkeepers, it trusts you to feel unease before anything explicitly horrible happens.

But The narrative fractals are genuinely confusing, and some find the middle section tedious. It demands total commitment and rewards it unevenly.

The Wailing2016

A small Korean village becomes the stage for a mystery where every answer creates new questions. The slow revelation of what's real and what's psychological is masterful.

But At over two and a half hours, it's punishing. The ending will either devastate or frustrate you depending on how much ambiguity you can tolerate.

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from The Innkeepers

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Nocturnal Animals2016

Like The Innkeepers, it's interested in how ghosts—whether literal or metaphorical—work through obsession and attention. Both films ask what happens when people become focused on something that wants them to focus.

A woman reads her ex-lover's novel and watches it performed in her mind, blurring what's fiction and what's her own trauma. It's a formal experiment about how stories can haunt us as thoroughly as ghosts.

But It's art-house formalism in a genre costume; some find it glacially self-serious and others find it genuinely boring. The violence is disturbing without being cathartic.

Lake Mungo2009

Found-footage haunting told almost like a documentary, where the horror emerges from grief and what families hide from each other. Genuinely original and deeply unsettling.

But The found-footage aesthetic hasn't aged well, and the pacing is glacial even by slow-burn standards. Many find it boring before the impact lands.

It Follows2015

A curse that manifests as something that walks toward you, always, from any direction. The concept is simple and the execution is a masterclass in dread from sound design and framing alone.

But Very slow, and the 'something is walking at you' can feel silly if you're not on the film's wavelength. The rules of the curse are never fully explained.

A Dark Song2016

A woman hires an occultist to perform a dangerous ritual in her isolated home. It's a two-hander about grief and desperation disguised as supernatural horror, quietly devastating.

But Barely anything happens for most of its runtime. If you're expecting scares or plot momentum, you'll be profoundly bored.

Insidious2011

A family's son slips into a coma and his parents learn he's actually trapped in an astral plane. James Wan knows how to construct genuine scares while keeping character grounded.

But The last act pivots into conventional haunted-house theatrics that undercut the earlier subtlety. Some of the dialogue is clunky and the mythology gets exposition-heavy.