The Innkeepers
One of the ways you can tell you are watching a Ti West horror film is that there isn't much horror in it. That's not an insult, it's just that this young director isn't one to populate his films with cannon fodder stereotypes for victims or have regular and nonsensical jump scares with loud noises interrupting the soundtrack. He has likable, regular people and, for about three quarters of an hour, all we do is hang out with them as they go about their fairly mundane jobs. So, for about half the running time, you'd be hard pressed to realise you're watching a horror film at all.
As with his previous film, the 1980s-themed shocker The House Of The Devil, West keeps things tight and focused with a small cast and few locations. Sarah Paxton plays Claire, one of two custodial employees of a large old hotel that's closing down. They are enthusiastic ghost hunters, spending the time between their menial tasks roaming about the place, hoping to record some paranormal activity from the guests who have passed away there over the years. West's "getting to know you" stage of the film really pays off later, making the viewer actually care as things turn bad for Claire.
Where most horror films fail by showing us stupid people doing stupid things until their much deserved deaths, The Innkeepers gives us nice, intelligent people to follow, earning the more terrifying moments. It's so much scarier that way.
Blu-ray & DVD, Metrodome
A Dangerous Method
Cronenberg's funniest film since eXistenZ, as the birth of psychoanalysis allows the director to exercise his dark wit.
Blu-ray & DVD, Lionsgate
Double Indemnity
One of the earliest and best film noirs, the dialogue sparkles as a "perfect" murder plan unravels.
Blu-ray & DVD, Eureka
Howl's Moving Castle
A Studio Ghibli classic, as a magically aged young woman and her fantastic friends are caught in a war.
Blu-ray, StudioCanal
King Of New York
Abel Ferrara's glossy crime epic, a kind of moody New York Scarface, with a cast led by Christopher Walken as the diabolic drug lord.
Blu-ray & DVD, Arrow
