Fantastic Fest 2011 – You Said What?/The Innkeepers

YOU SAID WHAT? (2011)

Directed by: Nini Bull Robsahm/Patrik Syversen
Written by: Nini Bull Robsahm/Patrik Syversen

Sometimes, you just don’t know what you’re getting yourself into. I just knew that I wanted to see two films today, so that I got as much out of the day as possible. I had to work, so I wouldn’t make the first block of movies. The second block, though, had two movies that I wasn’t too interested in and one that I had already seen.

Lesser of two evils?

You Said What? won out.

Glenn has a bit of a problem. His girlfriend just cheated on him on their first anniversary…with whipped cream. Now he’s alone. Sad Glenn is sad.

His three buddies decide that they need to cheer Glenn up, so they reenact Takeshi Miike’s Audition…without all the blood. They hold auditions for a movie that they have no plans to make.

Enter Linda, the woman of Glenn’s dreams. They hit it off and a funny thing happens…they now HAVE to make the movie. Unfortunately, they have no experience in filmmaking besides working at a video store.

FAR funnier than it ever should be, this romantic comedy rises above its silly premise and becomes something that I didn’t think that I would be into. Sure, there are no new plot points here. You know exactly where things are going the entire time. Luckily, though, the writers and actors manage to make it seem new.

They get a few good digs in at the film business, too. Their trip to the talk show is pretty priceless. And, of course, Peter Stormare is amazing.

Check this one out. It’s also called Help, I’m In Filmmaking! or something like that.

THE INNKEEPERS

Directed by: Ti West
Written by: Ti West

Ti West is one of those directors that I just can’t fully understand the appeal of. The Roost was such a terrible fucking movie. And then House Of The Devil was kinda awesome.

Where does his newest film fall on this spectrum? Well, somewhere in the middle, actually.

Claire and Luke (Sara Paxton and Pat Healy) are a couple of part-time kids at a smalltown haunted hotel that is on its last weekend. There are only three guests left. A mom and her small son and a has-been actress who Claire is a huge fan of (Kelly McGillis).

Claire and Luke are amateur ghost hunters, so they have been taking EVP recordings of the hotel since they started working there. So far, nothing. But could this last weekend be the time that they finally find something of Madeleine O’Malley, the ghost that supposedly haunts the hotel?

As I said, this movie falls somewhere between The Roost and House Of The Devil. The Innkeepers starts off as a pretty straight comedy. Claire and Luke are a totally modern pair (who are NOT together, by the way) of cynical kids who would LOVE to prove that ghosts exist, but they just barely believe in them. They make fun of the guests (sometimes to their faces) and take great joy in doing things to scare each other. Their dialogue is pretty real and this part of the movie is great. It had the potential to be something of a modern-day prequel to Ghostbusters.

Then the scary starts in. There are some genuine creepy moments, but a LOT of the real scares are “cat in the closet” scares. (How DID that bird get in the basement?) Yes, they sometimes call attention to them, but it still doesn’t always work. I started to get annoyed with it pretty quickly.

Then, at some point near the end, Claire became the stupidest person alive…and I HATE it when filmmakers do this. When you’re scared shitless and you’re waiting for someone to come downstairs, if you hear a noise from the basement, guess what you’re NOT going to do.

That’s right. Investigate the fucking creepy noise! I’m either staying put and yelling for the person I’m waiting for or I’m getting the fuck out of that place as fast as I can. I certainly don’t go to the basement!

I did, however, like the ending. I just wish that getting there hasn’t been an exercise in dumb.

By the way, this was definitely the Festival Of The Inhaler. Claire is asthmatic, as were the Martins in Human Centipede 2 and Retreat. Now THAT’S creepy!

So that’s how the Festival ended. Not quite a bang or a whimper. Somewhere in the middle. The party was fun, but I did a bad, bad thing: I tried two pieces of deep fried butter and a piece of deep fried bacon.

My arteries hate me right now.

And I can’t wait for next year.