[Vacancy]
Plot:A young married couple stranded at a desolate motel, discover hidden video cameras in their room. They soon realize that unless they escape, they'll be the next victims of a snuff film.

Cast: Kate Beckinsale, Luke Wilson, Frank Wahley.

My Thoughts: Pre-tty damn good.

Review:Between the clips and trailers that I had seen promoting "Vacancy", it looked to m like one of those small horror films that wouldn't be much and would offer up a 90 minute decent moviegoing experience at best. "Vacancy" wasn't perfect, but it certainly was a refreshing trip into madness. The picture follows Amy Fox (Kate Beckinsale) and her husband David Fox (Luke Wilson). Both are on their way to some small middle of nowhere town, although it's never explained why they're going there. Nor is it ever explained why Amy bursts into tears in the car when she looks at a picture of some little boy that it's suggested is her son. At any rate....when David swerves to avoid an animal in the road, the car doesn't take it too well and suffers engine damage. They eventually make it to a gas station and a local offers to fix the engine, does, but it konks out again about a minute later. With it being night time and all, the two decide to crash at a nearby motel until morning when they can get someone to fix their ride. Of course being that it's a small hick town out in the middle of nowhere, the best motel they can find is a really rundown looking place where everything looks like it's straight out of the movie "Psycho". The motel owner Mason (Frank Wahley) isn't much of a comfort to the couple either, and a womans blood curdling screams coming out of his office when Amy and David show up at his door is an obvious hint to the viewer that this guy might be a psycho. And while some small attempts are made during the course of the movie to sort of paint him with a question mark, those attempts prove to be futile for the most part. Only it's not made too obvious early on in the movie as to who's side he's on exactly. "Vacancy" does an excellent job of mixing elements of "Psycho" and "Joyride" together, and getting to the suspense early on in the film. Which is a good thing considering it's small cast and pretty thin storyline. When Amy and David enter their hotel room, it isn't long before they are disturbed and freaked out by a constant banging on the walls coming from an unseen creep in the room next door. The movie goes on like this for a good portion of the early going, with the banging getting louder and more disturbing. Scenes like this would usually bore the hell out of me, you know scenes where the killer or ers is playing mind games on their prey. But for some reason in Nimrod Antal's film they worked really well, and gave the movie a pretty eerie moment or two. Once David and Amy discover some torture/porn/sadist videos which were apparently filmed in the very room they're staying in, along with cameras watching their every move....the banging on the walls soon becomes the least of their worries. As now it's all about survival. "Vacancy" is about as predictable as they come beyond this point, but again for some reason I still enjoyed it. I think it's because even though the movie has a high predictability factor, the scenes are shot so well, set up so well, and Beckinsale and Wilson give such great performances that it totally overshadowed the fact that I pretty much knew what would happen next 9 times out of 10 as the film went along. There were also some very suspenseful moments thrown in constantly and the motel room itself..with it's stained walls and dingy look, acted as the perfect stage for all of this madness and mayhem to play out on. The villains in the movie aren't anything new, although because it's more than one, and they have tunnels dug underneath each room so that they can enter at will and take their victims by surprise....it adds to the high menace and danger factor of the film. But these folks are the norm for horror film antagonists. Just small town crazies that get their jollies by commiting sick twisted torturous acts upon visitors to the motel. And the most fucked up of all, they like to film said acts so they can watch them again and enjoy the bloody, terror-filled moments forever and ever. While the villains aren't the most original on-screen baddies you'll ever see, their level of depravity and psychosis makes them formidable opponents for the good guys, and very chilling characters to watch on-screen. There is a surprise of two thrown into the film to offset some of it's sheer predictability. Penner Mark L. Smith does throw the viewer for a loop every now and then though, including the apparent and unexpected demise of one of the films main characters. The climax of the movie is also really well done, and Kate Beckinsale shines in the films final moments as she battles the psychotic country bumpkins who have a taste for torture killings. "Vacancy" does have a shocking climax, but Smith once again tosses the viewer for a loop in the movies closing moments. Teasing a sequence of events that you would just totally expect to take place in a movie like this, but yet they never do. "Vacancy", despite a few open-ended subplots and plotholes involving the main characters, is a pretty enjoyable 90 minute look into the darkness that crazy human beings are capable of. And how ordinary people with a strong will to stay alive can battle back against said human beings. I'd certainly recommend seeing this one at the movies.

Positives:Luke and Kate were great in their roles, as was Frank Wahley as Mason. Alot of very suspenseful moments, and really eerie bad guys.

Negatives: The subplot of Amy and David's son wasn't expanded on enough. It seemed like there was a lot there that was never explained, especially since their son seemed to be the reason why in the films first 10 minutes they're arguing so much.

Overall:A good horror/thriller that relies more on great performances than anything else.





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