My phone rang and no one was on the line, which the hotel staff says happens all the time. “Since we’ve returned, lights have turned off and on by themselves in my room. I don’t believe in ghosts, but weird shit did happen.” (PHOTO: PAT HEALY, TI WEST)Įnough so, West says, that he was inspired to start a script during the stay about two employees who may or may not be experiencing a paranormal encounter on the eve of the inn’s closure. After a few nights, I started talking with the staff here and that’s when I heard about the ghost stories. A lot of us generally felt the hotel was creepy. They thought we were staying at, like, a Best Western. “But when I checked in, having known nothing about it, I immediately thought, ‘This fucking place is weird.’ I remember everyone in the crew being surprised too, rolling their eyes. “They told us, ‘We found a hotel, it’s and pretty cool,'” says West. Two years ago, his producers originally booked rooms at the Yankee Pedlar for West and his crew for the production of The House of the Devil, shot several miles away. Order several Bushmills from the hotel bar, wander the hotel’s creaky halls and shadowy rooms, and spend the night, wide awake.Īfter watching several takes of the above scene, we had to ask, “Dude, seen anything?” West half-smiled. West personally invited Interview to experience what this was like. His latest, entitled appropriately enough The Innkeepers, is not only shooting on location at the storied haunted hotel where the story is set, the entire cast and crew is living, eating, and sleeping here for the duration. This is the future of the American horror film, stylishly envisioned by 29-year-old writer-director Ti West, best known for last year’s delectable scarefest The House of the Devil. Of the nine or so crew members standing nearby, one yells “Cut,” as actress Sara Paxton proceeds to remove the bed sheet and rub her backside.
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As it turns out, we are observing two innkeepers in a drunken bout of freak-each-other-out. “I said, show yourself spirit!” And this time, the body rises, lurching its arms forward and emitting a feminine “Woooo! Grooohhooo!” Except, rather than succumbing to terror, the man begins to laugh at his assailant, who has tripped and fallen over a pillow. And moreover, in the center of the room, next to a sidetable crowded in Schlitz empties, there lies a body under a white sheet.ĭown a nearby hallway, the approaching voice of a young man booms “Show yourself, spirit!” The covered body remains still under the light of a chandelier.
![the innkeepers bed scene the innkeepers bed scene](https://somethingaboutsilence.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/innkeepers-6.png)
There’s a cozy forebodingness in the lobby’s silence and layout, as if the surrounding objects might simultaneously levitate and partake in a tenebrous dance. Framed black-and-white portraits of deceased tenants and old newspaper articles (“Kennedy Murdered!”) hang on the walls. Above a dormant fireplace, the eyes of a mounted deer look out on the spacious lobby, almost comically resigned to its surroundings. Outside the Yankee Pedlar Inn in northern Connecticut, the sun is setting, but inside the century-old hotel a grandfather clock ticks away the graveyard shift.
![the innkeepers bed scene the innkeepers bed scene](https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-kgVtC7fGdFg/VCVTDf8OHXI/AAAAAAABcms/mw6Jx0Mzuy0/s1600/d.png)
CLICK ABOVE FOR PHOTOS FROM THE SET OF THE INNKEEPERS