This is a good, though not great, ghost story movie. The characters, especially Claire and Luke, are likeable, and the atmosphere is spooky. There are few outright scares, but they’re effective when they happen. The tone overall is lighter than most contemporary horror movies, with lots of banter and teasing between Claire and Luke. I couldn’t help but notice the incidental music in the soundtrack, which gave the movie a 1980s vibe, which was enjoyable except in one crucial scene where it interferes with an important plot point–is that the sound of the piano in the lobby mysteriously playing by itself, or is it an intrusive bit of soundtrack?
Like most such movies, this one hinges on the characters’ willingness to plunge into unlit spaces like basements and attics in the middle of the night; my general unwillingness to do this probably means that I’ll never have a ghost story movie made based on my tragic demise. At least in this one we can explain it away by the consumption of Schlitz. I also have determined that even the cheesier ghost story movies are scarier for me than the most shockingly gory slasher movies.