Like all ghost stories, you need to commit to it and allow it to slowly reel you in until you’re hooked and wriggling in discomfort.
I’d advise you to watch in a suitable setting and atmosphere. All I was missing was the torch beneath the sheets. I thoroughly enjoyed staying up past my bedtime and being spooked. If you like old fashioned ghost stories, maybe Blair Witch and Paranormal Activity too, I reckon you’ll love this. And then, as the jocular tone of the early part of the film is replaced by something altogether more unsettling, another guest arrives… She also begins to develop a relationship with one of the hotel’s guests, a hard-drinking actress turned psychic ( a great performance from Top Gun’s Kelly McGillis). Good things come to those who wait, and the film starts to develop as inevitably, Claire’s good-natured ghost-hunt leads to her recording some authentic paranormal phenomena. Their plan is to spend the hotel’s final hours chasing ghosts and maybe, finally, nailing some definitive evidence of paranormal activity. The banter and dynamic between the two of them is superb – funny, natural and authentic. With the hotel having only two guests, and needing little in the way of service, they’re free to update the hotel’s cheesy website with the latest EVP recordings and film clips and generally enjoy having a large hotel to themselves. These two slackers are both intrigued by the hotel’s spooky history and tales of the abandoned bride who wanders the corridors. The disinterested owner has gone off on holiday, leaving the last rites to be administered by the hotel’s two remaining staff, Claire and Luke, played superbly by Sara Paxton and Pat Healy (the acting throughout is excellent). What followed was the story of a turn-of-the-century hotel which is closing for business.
This is such an important part of the filmic experience, and when properly crafted, it plays an essential role in setting mood and tone – quietening the audience and getting them into the right frame of mind. I had a feeling it was going to be good as soon as the opening credits came up: old sepia photographs over a menacing, orchestral score. A perfect setting in which to get back to basics and enjoy a good old-fashioned ghost story. I noticed it was scheduled for a 10.45pm showing, in one of the smaller, quieter and artier cinemas. This was showing as part of the Incredibly Strange film festival (.nz), which is an offshoot of the main New Zealand Film Festival.
A horror-thriller centered on the last two employees at a haunted hotel that’s going out of business.
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