Results are in. Your favorite haunted house movie?
Poltergeist was actually leading the pack for most of the week, but The Shining made a sizable comeback over the weekend, winning with 43.33% of the vote. I’m not a huge fan of the film, honestly, although I’ll try it again at some point and see if I can get past my unfulfilled desire to see Shelly Duvall eaten by giant topiary animals. That would have made the movie for me.
Poltergeist ended up in second place with 30% of the vote, and The Haunting, The Others, and The Amityville Horror all tied for a very distant third. Total Loser Award goes to many, many movies: The Changeling, Ju-On, The Legend of Hell House, House on Haunted Hill, The Uninvited, and The Innocents. I highly suspect that a lot of you haven’t seen most of these movies. I’m not judging—I haven’t seen any of them, either. Apparently, I need to watch more haunted house flicks. (My personal favorites, if you’re curious, are El Orfanato and Poltergeist. I pretty much grew up on Poltergeist. Even though I didn’t like scary movies. I was a weird kid.)
Anyone seen The Woman in Black yet? Or The Innkeepers? Are they any good?
My Geek Blasphemy 
I saw The Innkeepers recently, and that was pretty good. I found the protagonists very likable, there was some decent comedy, but not in a way which impeded the movie on it’s mission to scare the hell out of me. I don’t know how scary it’ll be if you’re less susceptible to haunted houses and jump scares, but for me it was very effective.
Although it’s not a plot-heavy movie or anything, I also liked what they ended up doing with what storyline they had, and that they were content to let the audience put the puzzle pieces together themselves instead of overexplaining it.
My biggest criticism is that everyone got ridiculously stupid towards the end. Splitting up for no reason even though they knew they were in danger, ect.
Argh, its, not it’s. I wish comments had an edit button.
I will have to watch at some point. When they’re done well, haunted house stories can be amazing. I could probably overlook the stupidity of the characters—depending on just how stupid they are—if they’re as likable as you say. Likability is important to me. Unlikable protagonists are certainly possible, but they’re a much harder sell. (Unless you’re supposed to be rooting for them to die. I really have no moral qualms about that at all.)