Ellington

Mediocre filmmakers are mangling the horror genre, and upstanding fear junkies ought to be screaming bloody murder. Movies like “Saw” (II-IV at least) and “The Human Centipede” drown good writing in a sea of gore.

Enter director Ti West with inspired film scripts in hand. Somewhere, Alfred Hitchock stops spinning in his grave long enough to nod in approval.

West’s 2009 film “The House of the Devil” caught critics’ attention as an homage to ’80s horror films, building the tension to a breaking point before delivering a twist on par with the unveiling of Norman Bate’s dissociative identity disorder in “Psycho.”

But West keeps his movies current, making classic tropes contemporary. The tremulous violin music that introduces his newest film, “The Innkeepers,” sounds vintage, and the inn itself is right out of the ’70s, but the characters belong in a Quentin Tarantino movie. Their snappy banter and idiosyncrasies make the first third of the movie feel more like a comedy, lulling audience members into a very false sense of security.

Like “The House of the Devil,” “The Innkeepers” makes the viewer wait before pulling back the curtain, unveiling a gruesome climax. But West has grown as a director since 2009. From the beginning, this new film employs more masterful sound and camera work, turning outmoded horror tricks — a closing of a mirror door or descent into a basement, for instance — into a series of counterfeit scares that dovetail neatly with the amusing dialogue. The result: Theatergoers will be jumpy as hell long before the real scares appear, attempting, in vain, to banish paranoia with nervous laughter.

You can’t set a horror film in a hotel without comparing it to Stanley Kubrick’s “The Shining.” West acknowledges this — the ending of “The Innkeepers” is a direct homage to the final shot of Kubrick’s terrifying masterpiece — and goes even further. Kubrick popularized the zoom movement techniques West uses heavily in both “The Innkeepers” and “The House of the Devil.”

Likewise, West’s separation of the script into chapters evokes both Lars von Trier and Tarantino’s films. This is West’s talent: His films blend the classic with the modern, and the pulpy with the artful.

“The Innkeepers” opens today at the Grand Illusion Cinema.

The verdict: “The Innkeepers” keeps it coming. A must-see for thrill-seekers.

Reach reporter Joseph Sutton-Holcomb at arts@dailyuw.com.