The Innkeepers – Movie Review

The Yankee Pedlar Inn is a real haunted hotel in Torrington, Connecticut. It is also the inspiration for horror director Ti West’s 2011 film, The Innkeepers. In the film, the old Yankee Pedlar is closing its doors for good. The inn’s two employees, Claire (Sarah Paxton) and Luke (Pat Healy), are determined to prove that the spirits dwelling inside the inn are real and make contact with them. The film is split into three acts and is more comedy than horror in the beginning. However, towards the end of the film, we meet the apparitions that live inside the inn and come to know their tragic stories.

The narrative in the movie and the actual story of why the inn is haunted differ. The actual account begins at the end of 1890 when Irish immigrant Frank Conley and his wife Alice buy the lot where the inn now stands. After months of construction, the Conley Inn opend in July of 1891. After the death of the Conleys in 1910, their niece sold the inn and throughout the years, the property was owned by a number of different individuals until 1997 when Anil and Dee Patel took over, and are still the current owners. A popular story claims that Alice Conley died in room 353, and she still roams the hall of her beloved inn to check in on the guests. It has also been reported that a rocking chair in the lobby, said to be Alice Conley’s favorite, has been seen rocking on its own. There have also been alleged sightings of Frank Conley in the inn’s pub using the phone.

After staying at the Yankee Pedlar inn while filming The House of the Devil, West was inspired to make the film after hearing some of the infamous ghost tales and speaking to the staff. The film’s ghost story depicts a tragic tale of Madeline O’Malley, who died in the hotel after hanging herself. Her fiancé left her at the altar on their wedding day. The owners of the hotel decided it would be bad press for the hotel if word got out about the suicide, so they hid the body in the basement of the hotel for three days until the body could be snuck out. After the townspeople caught wind of these shenanigans, they were so angry that the hotel had to be shut down. It remained closed until the 60s. Since then, people have reported seeing the fallen bride’s ghost wandering through the hotel.

During the final open week, Claire and Luke step up their paranormal investigations in order to make contact before the hotel closes. When hotel guest and former TV star Leanne Rease-Jones (Kelly McGillis) makes contact with the spirit, Claire starts to witness eerie happenings. For instance, while doing EVP recordings, she hears a piano that is not actually playing. With time running out on her stay at the hotel, Will Claire herself ever make contact with the spirit of Madeline O’Malley or will she leave the hotel behind, forever wondering just what happened to the spirit of Madeline O’Malley?

In my opinion, the film was exceptionally done. Visually it was amazing with incredible attention to detail. The actors were engaging and funny in an atmosphere  that was both subtle and scary. However, the scares were nothing to write home about and at times, the film dragged on very slowly.

The Innkeepers is worth seeing. It’s funny and scary at all the appropriate times, and tells an old haunting story from a different perspective.

 

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Written by:

Katie Sperduti

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Introducing…What I’m Eating, Minch’s Pop Tarts, and App’n Crunch

Dear Flakes,

It’s another weekend in May and you know what that means: another round of brand new feature content coming your way! This week we’ve got a little something special up our sleeve because we’re providing three new columns for your enjoyment. That’s right. We told you we had more surprises and here they are! Without further ado…

What I’m Eating- Shawn Abraham

The President and Chief of Eat Your Serial gets his typing hands dirty in this monthly column that is best described as a guide to delicious serials. Abraham will provide you with a guide to all the different kinds of serial he’s been consuming across multiple media platforms—and the suggestions are always fantastic. Whether the serials are comic books, novels, movies, television, or any other kind of serialized storytelling you better bet that Shawn Abraham is gonna steer you in the right direction and tell you just what you should be eating—and not to worry he’s tasted it first, so he knows it isn’t poisonous.

 

Minch’s Pop Tarts- Mike Minch

Minch’s Pop Tarts as brought to you by Mike Minch is a blog that is hard to define as anything other than a hilarious whirlwind attack on the world of popular culture. Drawing from his years of experience working in the movie theatre business, and more years of experience being attacked by popular culture Mike Minch is ready to lash back and tell the stars and content creators what-for. Never dull, and never without a sharp comment Mike Minch is sure to take a bite out pop culture in Minch’s Pop Tarts. Celebrities beware, starting this Sunday.

App’n Crunch- Cassidy Havens

In our first monthly Monday column Cassidy Havens will be introducing you to the world of Apps and technology. Each month Ms. Havens will be bringing you the best, brightest, and most useful apps for your mobile devices with thorough analysis of their use, humor at the application, and strong suggestions as to whether or not they are worth your bandwidth or money. Cassidy has mobile devices and she’s not afraid to use them for your benefit. Be still your beating hearts—if the app is bad she’s just as ready to slay it as she is ready to hail the great ones. Make sure to stick around come Monday for App’n Crunch.

Well that’s it for now, but just you watch our because we’ve got more new feature content coming your way every day and new monthly columns every weekend and Monday for the rest of the month. The new Toast is here, but we haven’t all arrived yet. Don’t worry, we’ve got a thousand courses ready for your consumption. Until then…

Eat it.

 

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Still Rocking with Joey Ramone, “Ya know?”

Summer is just around the corner. Along with the change in seasons comes new music to be played at the beach or during a barbecue. While this album cannot be categorized as beach music, it is still one of the most my most anticipated albums of this summer, even though the artist will not be doing any summer concerts anytime soon; unless he rises from the dead (which would be pretty cool).

Joey Ramone’s “Ya know?” is the second posthumous album released from the former singer for The Ramones. The album features previously unreleased tracks and demos that Ramone recorded in the last 15 years of his life. The album sounds like classic Ramones; concise, clean, and simplistic pop hooks that immediately stick in the brain. This album features some great songs that you actually want to get stuck in your head.

“Ya know?” is being released in large part due to Ramone’s brother, Mickey Leigh, who told The L.A. Times that fans have been messaging him for the past 8 years asking about this album. The record features contributions from well-known artists like Joan Jett and The E-Street band’s Steve Van Zandt.

The first track, “Rock ‘N Roll is the answer,” is the party anthem that never had the chance to rock, until now. This song ranks up there with classic Ramones songs such as “I wanna be sedated” and “Blitzkreig Bop.” What I always loved about Joey Ramone was his ability to have fun with his music. While this track is nothing profound, the bridge sums it up by stating, “You can’t break the spirit…”

“New York City” is a loving tribute to the city Joey Ramone said he was “proud to make my home” (this comes from a line in the song). A very simple, but fun, love letter to the Big Apple. The song concludes with what sounds like announcement over a loudspeaker telling passengers the next stop on the subway. I thought that was a nice touch.

Ramone shows a more tender side to himself with “Waiting for that railroad.” The song begins with a soft acoustic guitar leading into Ramone crying to his loved one; “Sitting here, thinking of you and I’m waiting for that railroad to go home.”  Something one might not be used to hearing Joey Ramone say. There’s a mandolin gently strumming in the background as Ramone laments about his longing to be home. This was one of my favorite songs on the album.

Another unexpected surprise was “Christmas in May.” “Merry Christmas (I don’t want to fight)” may be a well known song by the singer, but this album offered up a different version. Listeners may be used to the version that was released in 1989, which was much heavier, faster, and more upbeat than the newer version. This rendition has a fifties doo-wop vibe to it. Mid-tempo and much more mellow, this is definitely a song to add to the Christmas playlist.

All in all, “Ya know?” is a solid album. It’s unfortunate that Joey Ramone is not around to participate in the promotion or go on tour. Ramone died in 2001 after a seven-year battle with lymphoma in his beloved New York City.

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Black Coffee Blues

To celebrate being done with my final semester in college, I decided to re-read an old favorite for this review.

I have always been a fan of Henry Rollins and his music, but when I received his book, “Black Coffee Blues,” as a gift, I was officially hooked on him for life. Rollins is known for his intellect and wit, and it really shines in this book. The book itself is even published in 1992 by Rollins’ own publishing company, 2.13.61, which happens to be his birthday.

“Black Coffee Blues” is a collection of Rollins’ journal entries, short writings and poetry from 1989-1991. Each section differs from the next one, but the common feature that each one has is brutal honesty. Rollins’ truthful, hard-edged view of the world comes through in each passage. Whether he is discussing his distaste for other musicians or observing the daily grind of a number of different people to the pain of isolation, Rollins writes each one without any apologies. Anyone who is not a fan of vulgarity or faint of heart may not be able to enjoy the bluntness that is Henry Rollins.

Two of my favorite sections of the book are “124 Worlds” and “I Know you”. I can remember hearing the audio version of “I Know you” on Youtube when I was a teenager, but never realizing it was in a book. Being an angry, bitter teenager, I related to the feeling of suffocating isolation that he was writing about.

This is a favorite section of mine from the poem:

“so you learned to be invisible
to look down
to avoid conversation
the hours
days
weekends
ah the weekend nights, alone
where were you
in the basement?
in the attic?
in your room?
working some job?
just to have something to do
just to have a place to put yourself
just to have a way to get away from them
a chance to get away from the ones that made you feel so strange and ill-at-ease inside yourself”

To me, this poem offered a hand to guide me through the troubled times and it has stayed with me since the first time I heard it (which was probably over 12 years ago). Everyone needs someone to identify with; someone to help get through their growing pains, and for me, that was Henry Rollins.

“124 Worlds” is a collation of various stories from different people. What I liked most about this section was that no story was the same. One entry was about how a fan wrote to Rollins about wanting to kill herself. She wanted him to select the method of how she does it, he told her “to die of old age.” Other stories talk about escaping from abuse, falling in love and other topics we, as humans, face on a regular basis.

After a long semester of reading for grades, it was nice to pick up an old favorite and simply read for pleasure. If you enjoy looking at the world from another person’s point of view, no matter how vulgar it may be, you will enjoy Rollins’ take on the world through “Black Coffee Blues.”

 

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Written by:

Katie Sperduti

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Snow White and the Seven Disorders

The other day I was sitting on my couch watching Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (I suspect I’ve never actually progressed past the age of seven).  As I watched, I started to wonder about the dwarfs. Why do they all live together in the middle of the woods? I suppose it makes sense to be near the mines where they work, but didn’t they ever want to branch out of their little house? Meet some new people? Go to a movie or a brothel or whatever the local entertainment may be?

No judgement. If it's good enough for the Secret Service, it's good enough for me

The more I thought about the dwarfs, the more I realized that there might be an explanation for their behaviors. So, I have compiled a list of the seven dwarfs and the mental disorders they could potentially suffer from.

Name: Sneezy
Potential Disorder: Hypochondria
Explanation: Sneezy is, as his name implies, always sneezing. Perhaps he just has really bad allergies, but I think it’s more than that. There’s a lot of pressure for him to live up to his name so what if he were to get better? He would have to go through an identity overhaul. He could change his name, but it might sound a little odd if the seven dwarfs were Sleepy, Dopey, Doc, Happy, Bashful, Grumpy, and Frank. No, I think Sneezy keeps himself in a perpetual state of sickness by fixating on his nose because he’s afraid of what might happen if he didn’t.
Other Possible Cause: Cocaine. Look at that nose.

Name: Sleepy
Potential Disorder: Idiopathic Hypersomnia
Explanation: This disorder is defined as excessive sleeping without an obvious cause. Sleepy is always asleep–doesn’t matter if you’re in the middle of a sentence. If he needs to sleep then your voice is either tuned out or incorporated into his dreams, causing him to later awaken and wonder why he dreamed about last night’s episode of Glee.
Other Possible Cause: Ambien or some other addiction to sleeping pills.

Name: Dopey
Potential Disorder: Mutism
Explanation: This is a disorder which is characterized by an individual being unable or unwilling to speak for over a month. There’s the possibility and Dopey is just dumb, but perhaps everyone thinks he’s dumb because he won’t speak. One day he’ll decide to speak and the other dwarfs will be shocked into silence as Dopey explains theories to them that make Stephen Hawking look like he is a few crayons short of a full box.
Other Possible Cause: Marijuana. His iPod should be checked for Steve Miller Band.

Name: Happy
Potential Disorder: Bipolar Disorder
Explanation: At first I wasn’t sure that Happy had a psychological disorder. After all, isn’t being happy the goal in a lot of cases? His excessive happiness had me wondering until I came across Bipolar Disorder. While Happy only appears to exhibit the manic highs and not the depressive lows in his temperament, we never see him at all times of the day. For all we know, whenever he’s off camera he could have locked himself in the bathroom where he sobs and writes sad poetry.
Other Possible Cause: Ecstacy. It could even make you love techno music.

Name: Bashful
Potential Disorder: Social Anxiety Disorder
Explanation: This disorder is an excessive self-consciousness and shyness in social situations. Physical symptoms can include blushing, a pounding heart, upset stomach, and diarrhea. If Bashful suffers from the last two physical symptoms, I think he has bigger problems than red cheeks.
Other Possible Cause: Not sure. If anything, I’d say he needs to borrow from Dopey’s stash, but with Bashful’s luck, that would just make him paranoid.

Name: Grumpy
Potential Disorder: Intermittent Explosive Disorder
Explanation: This disorder is characterized by excessive anger or rage with a hair trigger. It’s most commonly seen on Internet message boards. Someone makes an innocent comment about their favorite sports team and someone lashes out with a message typed in all caps to fully express their rage over someone liking the Raiders (although the Raiders do suck). Although Grumpy isn’t clogging up message boards with his unnecessary anger (only because the dwarfs’ house doesn’t have WiFi), he still manages to find the dark cloud around the silver lining.
Other Possible Cause: Alcohol. He’d be one of those mean drunks that would pick a fight with you for looking at his woman.

Name: Doc
Potential Disorder: ?
Explanation: My first thought was to characterize Doc as obsessive compulsive because he’s a perfectionist, but the lack of rituals leads me to believe he’s just anal-retentive. In spite of these tendencies, Doc appears to be the most well-adjusted of all the dwarfs. However, those are the ones to watch. Whenever someone snaps and shoots up the office, it’s usually that guy next door that everyone said seemed like a nice, normal neighbor. Doc could just snap one day under the pressure of having to wrangle all the other dwarfs and keep them in check.
Other Possible Causes: All of the aforementioned substances. Doc’s sanity and stress level seem to walk a very fine line.

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Written by:

Emily Regan

Author and Guest Contributor

 

 

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