Small horror/thriller films are all the rage with the studios these days… mostly because you’re almost guaranteed to make a little money with them and the fact that generally speaking they’re pretty inexpensive to make. Add a little star power in there and you’re well on your way. So here is “Vacancy” with Luke Wilson and the ever delicious Kate Beckinsale.
Wilson and Beckinsale are a married couple already in the process of divorcing heading back home after a weekend at her parents house helping to celebrate their wedding anniversary (the family doesn’t know Beckinsale and Wilson are having problems you see). They get off the main highway and end up driving lost on some back road in the middle of the night. When they have car problems they end up in a motel for the night… but little do they know that the keepers of this motel kill their guests and film it to sell as “snuff films”. Now Wilson and Beckinsale are trapped with no way out! Dum dum dummmmmm!
THE GOOD
I’m shocked to say this, but the on screen chemistry of Luke Wilson and Kate Beckinsale as the “couple with serious problems and history but you can still tell they love each other” actually worked. I’ll admit that I thought going in that they’d be a hard “couple” to buy together, but they made it work pretty well. More importantly they felt somewhat believable too.
The tension in the film is designed pretty well. The people in the theater were all jumping at the right time. Yes, there were times when the “scares” felt a little too orchestrated, but the bottom line was that they seemed to work on the audience, and ultimately that’s all that really counts. Other times it’s just done perfectly. Director Nimrod Antal made great use of sound and light to get your anxiety up to peak levels…. often scaring you without showing you anything (It’s always a good thing when a director understand that the things you don’t see scare you a lot more than the things you do see).
THE BAD
There really isn’t much to this movie. As we were walking out I mentioned to one person “It felt like a great scene from a movie…. that got stretched out into an entire movie in and of itself”. The scenario is the movie. Yes, you can see they tried to have a little character development in there too… but it was a token effort at best. Some will argue that it’s what the movie was trying to do… but when a movie has no more depth to it than its outlying scenario, then it pretty much becomes a forgettable film the moment you walk out of the theater… I’m having trouble right now even remembering what movie it is I’m reviewing.
Ok come on. If you’re going to have a group of killers continuously murder tons of people on film at the same motel all the time… you’d assume they’d need to be borderline geniuses to keep it hidden and out of the eyes of the authorities right? They must have some very elaborate system in place to be able to keep having people disappear in their motel… and never have anyone ask any questions right? Well… the problem is you never once believe that if brain power was dynamite that any of these guys could even blow a load watching lesbian porn.
The ending is anticlimactic at best and a total “WTF” moment at worst. How do I explain it without giving anything away? It felt like the ending was a SET UP for an ending… but that ending never came… the credits just rolled. And I don’t mean the last 30 seconds of the movie either. The whole final 15 minutes felt like they were just setting up the ending… except it WAS the ending. It’s frustrating to explain, but you know exactly what I mean if you saw it (poor you).
OVER ALL
Vacancy is at times a scary and tension building little thriller movie that is ultimately forgettable and fails due to its lack of anything substantial outside of its basic premise, fluffy morons as “bad guys”, a couple of pretty significant plot holes and a very unsatisfying ending. Not a horrible movie, but not really worth your time either. On a scale of 1 to 10 I give Vacancy a 5, on the No, Go and Routh scale I give it a NO.
(THE VIDEO REVIEWS WILL RETURN WHEN JOHN GETS BACK FROM LA)
I also liked the movie; and I actually can’t remember when was the last time I’ve seen a horror movie that didn’t suck. It seems that most people liked it too – at the moment it has a 6.9 rating on IMDB and a 54% on Rotten Tomatoes – quite impressive for a horror movie and not bad for any kind of movie, in general. I also suggest to try to see Kontroll, if you get the chance – it’s an amazing movie. And if you’ve seen it and liked it, give Vacancy a try; it won’t disappoint you. The director is a pretty talented guy and you’ll find out that his work is definitely worth your time.
Kristina, I wholeheartedly recommend THE LAST DAYS OF DISCO and COLD COMFORT FARM, (and also LAUREL CANYON). Since she started doing genre films, Beckinsale’s talents have been more or less wasted. Neither Wilson or Beckinsale shine in Vacancy, but the direction, camera work and overall mood and tension will have me recommending Vacancy as more of an old-school type (read: relatively restrained) thriller, the kind John Frankenheimer, Alan Pakula or Arthur Penn would have made if they were in their early 30’s today (as Hungarian director Nimrod Antal is).
Also, everyone seriously go out and rent KONTROLL it’s a bloody fantastic debut film from Antal.
Sorry, but as soon as I saw Luke Wilson in the trailer, I knew it would be shit. He does NOTHING for me. Blander than white bread. And I haven’t seen Kate in anything except a shitty Underworld and a shitty Pearl Harbor.
LOVED IT!
THe film was very simple straight forward and very much like a Hitchcock film. Yes the ending was abrupt but in this age were a films never end it seems, I felt it was it was great to just leave you with questions not answered..Use your imagination, it will keeo you healthy.
Oh gawd this movie was terrible.
Couldn’t agree more. It was in my opinion a breath of fresh air that avoided the usual propensity to resort to cheap thrills and sharp boosts in the soundtrack to “scare”. The way it was shot was also refreshing, and the use of lighting and sound like you said was very good. I disagree with outright stating that the public (or at least your audience) should avoid this film, but that’s another story. Sure the ending wasn’t anything to rival The Usual Suspects, but it stayed true to the rest of the film.
Never ceases to amaze me how I almost ALWAYS disagree with you John.
I just got back from a *LATE* screening of Vacancy. I actually found it refreshing that the movie just got down to business and didn’t worry about the bloat. Suspense build up was the point of the film and it worked very, very well. And praise should go out to a ‘victim’ couple in a movie that actually makes Smart decisions. (I was not getting a “Don’t” trailer vibe from Vacancy.)
**MILD SPOILERS**
And the mention that the ending felt like a set up for an ending. Well, I think everyone is so used to watching movies with 3 to 4 endings, it is kinda surprising when things happen the first time. While I can partially buy your argument that these folks couldn’t have kept their ruse up (but the SPARKLER is the key to their choosing of victims I think). It doesn’t change the fact for once, the victims are kinda useful and for once the crazy badguys are human (and cocky) enough to make a few reasonable mistakes to give the victims some wiggle room. For what it was, I thought the film was pretty solid.
Heck I’ll take this over Ghost Rider, Smokin’ Aces, The Hitcher Remake and Fuckin’ Disturbia ANY DAY OF THE WEEK.
I was really looking forward to seeing this film, but i felt so let down by the final result. It was a film with great moments that made me jump a few times. But I was in no way satisfied with the film as a whole. The acting was not really good, and the screenplay had so many wholes in it. All in all its a film that I will only see once.