Hopefully like them, anyway: our two protagonists are very much indie movie characters of the modern tradition, disaffected creative class sorts who are a little bit (or a lot) too keyed-in to internet culture to feel like actual flesh-and-blood people, and I know that I am not alone in wishing the entire population would be banished from low-budget cinema forever and always. It gets that way through the sublimely old-fashioned tactic of making sure the viewer is invested in the characters, giving us a lot of time to get to know them and like them before even a lick of paranormal activity kicks in. And this brings us to The Innkeepers, about a pretty girl in a haunted hotel, which turns out to be a hell of a good ghost story and spooky campfire movie, with just enough depth of character and place that it's smarter than your average paranormal flick, and a significant improvement, to my eyes, on West's previous work. That might be overstating things a little, or a lot - his cultishly adored The House of the Devil is a zesty, skillful pastiche, but to my eyes, it is never anything more than a pastiche - but this much is certainly, undeniable true: the man has a real gift for assembling familiar elements in familiar ways and still making movies that are fresh and interesting and not nearly as worn-out as they feel like they're supposed to be.
There are some corners of the internet where they'll tell you that writer-director Ti West is just about single-handedly reviving the horror genre.