The Innkeepers

I have long held a mixed opinion for the horror genre because the esthetics of the whole genre have changed. Today a modern horror flick gets most of the scares from in your face scares and their scores follow suit. Now Ti West has carved himself a name in the Horror genre by conveying more atmosphere and tension than other directors. The movie Then Innkeepers pays tribute to the horror movies of the earlier years. I'm talking like the early years of horror movies and the score to the movie pays tribute to those movies.

The main theme is presented right of the bat on the score in the cue(The Innkeepers). This central theme is representative of the inn itself and it resident ghost Madeline. Played with a heavy bass string ostinato and the upper violins moving up and down in minor steps lead softly too one the more memorable theme for a haunting in a long time. Played with a kind of menacing kind of movement I haven't heard since Jerry Goldsmith.

In fact Jeff Grace treats the score with the kind of soothing instrumentation that made Goldsmith's The Haunting such a treat. There in lies my only real problem with the score, where the first half of the score builds the tension which worked miracles in the movie never really made an impact in the score. But thankfully the score isn't really all that long and the last half rages with the kind of propulsive energy that really makes the ending to the movie so frightening.

Though in the end if you aren't into the kind of minimalistic horror film that this movie is than the score will go unnoticed, which is a shame because both the Inn and Score let loose more of a personality than the inn's two awkward stars.