The Haunted Hotel is an anthology– horror, I guess– based on the Great White Horse Hotel located somewhere in the UK. The stories aren’t told in chronological order– it goes back and forth between 1936 and 2019. To be frank, some of the stories are entertaining, while others lack substance to even ignite the reel. The opening is very bland compared to what follows in the track.

Eight stories are brought to liven up the film, each one presented independently with different directors, writers and cast. It should be noted that these stories are not related to each other, so there is no plot to follow. However, the compilation of shorts share the background of the hotel as a place inhabited by several souls stranded on our plane. There is no mention of a reason why the building is haunted, nor why the spirits remain in that location. Some do not even have an explanation for how they ended up ghostly inhabiting the rooms, while others have a clue as to what took them there.

The Haunted Hotel doesn’t bring changes or revolutionary ideas to the already developed, and sometimes tired, horror anthology subgenre. The material consists of eight stories that have no relationship other than taking place on the hotel property. There is no relationship between the hotel rooms, nor between the owners by era, nor between the guests, nor between the spirits that haunt the building– there is only the instinct to be there because someone had the ambiguous idea of its existence. It would have been interesting to see how the stories could be tied together into a coherent thread to keep the audience in suspense and bring the plot to a dark conclusion with the possibility of making more volumes that add to the legends of the hotel. However, besides having no order, it can only be seen that not all the stories are good, and only three could have the potential to extend their content into a feature film.

If we look at another side of this project, it could be considered a film suitable for the whole family due to its light content, no profanity, no nudity, and no graphic violence. Some of the shorts are emotional due to the background of dealing with the loss of a loved one, and some are comical due to the peculiar characteristics of the characters. However, not everything seems to be redeemable in this feature.

If you’re in the mood to watch a collection of stories presented in an untimely manner, then The Haunted Hotel could be your ideal fix for the evening. If you’re done with anthologies that lead nowhere and justify their existence by “creativity”, you should probably skip it.

5 OUT OF 10 CONCIERGES