A young Iranian couple and their baby are the sole occupants of a Shining-style hotel in this effective supernatural thriller
The fundamental creepiness of hotels is the driving force behind this very potent supernatural mystery-thriller from Iranian-American film-maker Kourosh Ahari: the creepiness of their deserted corridors, their stately or shabby lobbies, and their anonymous rooms, whose blankness keeps the secret of their previous occupants.
It’s a creepiness that predates and is independent of Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining, though that’s admittedly an influence here. In modern-day
Los Angeles, a young Iranian couple with a baby – Babak (Shahab Hosseini) and Neda (Niousha Noor) – are at a dinner party with
Friends in an unfamiliar part of town. They are tired and quarrelsome on the way home; Babak is really too drunk to drive, and Neda has lost her licence after an earlier run-in with a traffic cop, so they grumpily decide to check in to the nearest hotel. This turns out to be the Hotel Normandie (perhaps calling it “Hotel California” would have been too on-the-nose). The sinister receptionist of this odd establishment (George Maguire) tells them he only has a suite available: irritable and impatient, Babak takes it.