The Yankee Pedlar Inn is closing after being in business for over a hundred years. Spunky young Claire (a winningly perky portrayal by Sarah Paxton) and her nerdy coworker Luke (a fine performance by Pat Healy) are the sole remaining employees left. The pair decide to investigate rumors that the place might be haunted.Writer/director Ti West relates the compelling story at a deliberate pace, makes excellent use of the sprawling hotel location, takes time to develop the main characters, expertly crafts a quietly unsettling gloom-doom atmosphere, and pulls out the terrifying stops at the bloodcurdling climax. Moreover, West warrants additional praise for eschewing graphic gore and cheap jump-out-at-you scares in favor of focusing instead on a gradually mounting mood of dread and unease. Paxton and Healy display an engaging natural chemistry in the lead roles; they receive sturdy support from Kelly McGillis as former actress turned kooky New Age psychic healer Leanne Reese-Jones, Brenda Cooney as unrestful ghost Madeline O'Malley, Alison Bartlett as an irate mother, and George Riddle as the mysterious elderly final guest. Lena Dunham has a funny bit as a gabby and annoying coffee shop barista. Eliot Rockett's slick widescreen cinematography provides an impressive polished look. Jeff Grace's spirited shivery score hits the spine-tingling spot. An on the money scarefest.

I had high hopes going in, the box has it listed 4 stars, its rated high on RT, Rogerebert.com gave it a 3/4. It really shows the disconnect between audiences and critics however. The movie is well put together in most aspects, the acting is strong and at times it can be quite tense. But the plot is broken, there are two different movies going on and they are stuck together by tape.The first half is very bubbly and charming, it goes a great length in creating an attachment to the characters. This could have been a very entertaining comedy as two hotel clerks talk about a supposed ghost while they're underlying attraction to each other grows stronger. Then halfway through, we are confirmed that there is a ghost and the tone shifts completely. And the shift is very jarring, just BAM, here is the ghost, don't go in the basement. From here on, there are no more jokes and everyone sobers up. The lack of focus early on has major ramifications later on that hinder it from really taking off as a horror movie.The second half is done well but it is still not quite fleshed out. We are never given quite enough information on the ghost to really discern anything about her. We are led to believe in the beginning that she was someone that committed suicide when her fiancé stood her up on their wedding day but then I got the impression that a guest that comes to the hotel was her husband. His suicide note speaks of his wife, he is emotionally attached to the room she died in,and his spirit seems to assist her but that contradicts the story we were told. There is no need for motivation in ghost stories but there needs to be at least some sort of explanation what happened. It gives the audience some sort of reasoning, something to grasp onto and make them believe the character has some sort of chance even if it is just to be taken away.What gets me the worse about the story is the implication that there are three benefactor spirits. Its mentioned by the actress that they died in some tragedy and were warning Claire to stay out of the basement. The problem is, when? They were never brought up before nor heard from again by a character that plays a pivotal role for Claire's character. There isn't even any ghostly evidence of their existence, like they were cut from the script and the director forgot to fix the one line. It could be that the actress is trying to frame her warning, but why? Why not just say it was the ghost? Why mention some vague tragedy that no one seems aware of? And why 3? If she is framing her advice, it's like a person with a bag on their head trying to prove they aren't crazy by trading their paper bag for plastic.The ending has impact because Claire was a likable character but her death really has no build. Its quite obvious what is going to come, she locks the bilco door and seals her own fate, but there was no twists and turns that made it seem she was going to escape. The lack of catharsis makes for a forgettable finale, certainly not one that deserves such a high score elsewhere.

For a movie that is an hour and thirty five minutes not much is going on, there is way to little in the story to grab on, you have to wait for the last thirty minutes to get the horror part of the movie going...I'm not kidding I wish I was but I'm not. The other part of the movie introduces our main characters Sara Paxton is probably the only good thing in this movie, she is so underrated as an actress she has so much potential that I know she will have her shot soon, besides her there's not much to say about the other characters anything interesting anyway. The ghost in the movie is not really there we see so few of it and with good reason...it's not scary at all, like I said it takes the last 30 minutes to kick that part going in the meantime your left with two staff members bored as hell trying to kill time looking for said ghost. Ti West made the house of the devil a movie that had the same effect on me that I did this one, wastes to much on characters( that are barley interesting...most of the time) an so little in the horror aspect so the mood gets lost and one feels cheated, I like a slow burn horror movie the anticipation of what is coming drives you and when it's done well you know the climax was worth it, but this movie makes it such a waist and the payoff is not scary. What I can say good about it was Sara Paxton, the hotel and the camera work were phenomenal and that's about it If you watch the trailer it will misguide you into thinking of a way better movie than what you will get.

There is one thing that this movie will guarantee, "You may fall asleep halfway through with boredom and waiting for something to happen". It doesn't until the end when such a mundane existence leads to a slight mental breakdown, and that's it. The whole movie consists of just two slackers telling ghost stories to relieve their boredom, and there are an odd couple of creepy old people thrown in a pathetic attempt to revive interest. Yawn :( The moral of this movie is 'idle hands are the devil's workshop'. In other words, it's a tale of what results from idle boredom. For some bizarre reason someone assigned this garbage to the 'horror' genre. If it must be accredited to any genre, then just throw it into suspense, since you spend most of the movie waiting.