Motel

While driving during the night, David Fox (Luke Wilson) leaves the interstate and takes a shortcut through a lonely road. He is in a divorce process with his wife Amy (Kate Beckinsale), who is sleeping in the car, after the loss of their son Charlie. In order to avoid hitting a raccoon, David breaks down the fan of his car and the couple finds stranded in the road. Without any other alternative, they decide to spend the night in a nasty low budget motel in the middle of nowhere. While watching some amateurish slash movies in the VCR, David realizes that they have been shot in their room. Sooner they discover that they are trapped in the place and surrounded by sadistic filmmakers of snuff movies.

"Vacancy" has a promising and claustrophobic beginning, with the scared couple stranded in a lonely place with a weird manager of an awful motel and listening to aggressive beats in the doors of their room. The development is also tense and good. However, the corny and commercial conclusion like in a television film spoils the story. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "Temos Vaga" ("Vacancy")

Amy and David are close to ending their marriage, and share one final journey, the pair break down and check into a hotel, one which hides a very bleak secret.

The snuff film thriller was definitely in vogue back in 2007, it's a genre that has definitely died away, but Vacancy is a film that's well worth revisiting.

I'm not sure why, but I've always thought this film has an Alfred Hitchcock vibe about it, even that music in the opening credits seems to fit the bill.

A good old fashioned game of cat and mouse, with Amy and David taking on their captors, fortunately they're noy the brightest bunch.

Genre wise it's pretty much a horror thriller, I only wish they had ramped up the horrors element a little more.

It's not particularly unique, but it's very watchable, it's well paced, and given the fairly short running time it moves along without any lull.

Kate Beckinsale and Luke Wilson are both very competent in their respective roles.

7/10.

This is a typical thriller if you want to have a little scare at night. It is pretty fast-paced and gets to the action almost right away, from a divorcing couple's (Wilson and Beckinsale) issues on the road to ending at a freaky motel with strange banging noises in the room and finally to the mysterious video tapes in the room.

The movie became predictable midway towards the end, where the chase between the bad guys and the good guys begin. The villains take credit for being probably the most clueless I've seen on the screen. Their dialog is very cheesy and campy (I mean, who throws their opponent on top of a gun on the floor?). There's plenty of action, but I think the climax was a little rushed through and too predictable. Otherwise, it's an OK movie for a scare.

So, never check into a motel at night in the middle of nowhere. Sleep in your car instead.

Grade C

The ingredients are very familiar. So, to know the premise is to know the plot: Married couple on the outs travel through rural America, experience an automobile breakdown and locate the colorful folks in the back-country for assistance. What ensues is the usual "survive the night" style narrative with a few minor modifications.

That said, Luke Wilson (who apparently was a total PITA to work with) provides a very good performance. (If he was dialing it in, it certainly does not show.) And Kate Beckinsale was a great compliment to him the whole way through. In short, whatever their horrible chemistry off-set; on-set, it worked (after all, "David" and "Amy" are a couple in the midst of a divorce).

On top of that, the set design, lighting and pace of events are really quite good. And while there are some plot holes, this film had just enough energy and pluck to keep me interested. (The producers wisely trimmed it to 1:25.)

Vacancy;; Vacancy opens as a typical horror film, following a soon to be divorced couple, Amy and David Fox, driving down a winding road, in the middle of nowhere in the middle of the night. Car troubles lead them to an abandoned motel where the manager informs them the mechanic will be back early in the morning. He seems friendly at first, and offers them a discount on the Honeymoon suite. Amy is resistant, but David convinces her.

Amy's first impression of the Motel was right on target, as a series of creepy events lead David and Amy to watch a video tape in which various guests at the same hotel are murdered. Soon after, David finds hidden cameras in the vents. Suddenly, the lights go out, and David and Amy must fight to find a way to escape... or end up getting slaughtered on tape like everyone else.

I am an avid horror movie fan, although lately I have run into the problem of not getting scared during these so called "scary movies." I am pleased to report, not just to horror film fans, but movie fans alike, Vacancy is actually scary. And that is just about the biggest compliment a movie such as this could get.

Throughout the 80 minute running time of Vacancy, I jumped a few times, gasped once or twice, and had white knuckles for almost the entire time. Luke Wilson and Kate Bekinsale give good performances as the bickering victims, and direction is particularly well-done. Director Nimrod Antal makes a wise choice, veering from torture, blood and guts, and relying mostly on putting these characters we care about in taut, tense situations.

Vacancy is a fun, frightening horror movie. 3 from 4.