Ti West Shares the Backstory to his Film "The Innkeepers" | Film Connection Part 8 of 8 

www.filmconnec... Filmmaker Ti West (V/H/S, The Innkeepers, In a Valley of Violence, The House of the Devil, The Sacrament, Cabin Fever 2: Spring Fever, The Roost) is known for his tension-fueled horror flicks that stay with you long past the closing credits. While most of writer/director/producer's oeuvre are nail-biting, plot-driven films, The Innkeepers sticks out as being a decidedly character-driven ghost story.
Turns out, while making another of Ti's movies, "House of the Devil," the crew lived in a hotel because it was "a cheap place to stay." Well, real life strangeness befell the crew; Ti took a number of those occurrences and turned them into "The Innkeepers." As is the case with "House of the Devil" which deals with the fear one experiences as they deal with the realities of making choices and encountering an unknown future, there's an all-too-familiar uncertainty just under the surface of the film. While the plot will keep you guessing what's going to happen next, the subtext has a lot to say about everyday Americans who find themselves stuck in a minimum wage job. Unsure about what's ahead, they're asking themselves, "Is this it?"
There is a notable amount of comedy in The Innkeepers. Ti says adding comedy into the mix just made sense since that's what people who are bored at work would do.
So, did the filmmaker ever question whether he was writing a horror movie or a comedy? Nope. Ti says he never made a concious choice to abide to the dictates of any genre but to tell the story just as it needed to be told.
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