Vacancy

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Summary:
A struggling married couple's car breaks down in the middle of the night, in the middle of nowhere. They end up at a seedy motel, and VCR tapes in the room show other previous visitors getting killed off. Soon, they realize they are to be the next victims in a snuff film.

Review:
Nimród Antal is a dude I've never heard of before. I have to say, it's apparent that he's a fan of Hitchcock! The opening credit sequence had a score resembling the Hitchcockian Vibe, and also reminded me a bit of Psycho. My suspicion was confirmed when the manager had a few taxidermy birds on the front counter, most obviously a reference to Norman Bates' love for taxidermy. Clever. These weren't the only elements to a Hitchcock theme that this movie possessed. It also has the element of tension building and an overall fixed style of cinematography that Hitchcock went for. This kind of tone was appropriate for Vacancy.

With that said, Vacancy was not too shabby! Beckinsale is one hell of a gorgeous woman, and even though she was a bit of a bitch in this one, I still loved her. Wilson was about the same this time around as he usually is, albeit with a little less dry sarcasm than you'd expect. Another really nicely added touch is Frank Whaley's performance as the hotel manager. He's a somewhat unctuous wormy fellow with an undercurrent of dissension against Wilson and his rude/frustrated behavior. He's got an easy smile, but Whaley really pulled off an almost imperceptible hint of disgust at being a product of customer service, and at the same time, it's completely obvious. I bow down to this man's talents!
It's not long before things started to become a little uncomfortable to watch. Being in a dark road in the middle of nowhere and having your car break down is never a fun idea. They did a great job establishing a constant state of foreboding. We know that things are going to go really sour any moment, and they don't jump right into the blood and guts like most slasher movies would have ended up doing. In fact, the use of onscreen gore is minimal at best. The snuff videos aren't too graphic, yet tell you all you need to know. Vacancy spends the majority of its time trying to make you feel at unease, and become involved in the same amount of horror and suspense that Mr. and Mrs. Fox are experiencing. It's more of a "mood" piece than a slasher movie like I was half expecting. That's a great direction for this movie to take. It could have very easily been another chalk mark on the never ending list of unoriginal horror movies, but tries its best to be a little something more than just brainless gore.
There was even an effort at building a background on the couples' turmoil, with a cryptic bit of exposition eventually explaining that their son recently died, making Mrs. Fox unwilling to try keeping them together as a couple, as well as a few other things. I respect the desire to make these two people more tangible character-wise, but in the end it didn't work that well. I will make note of their valiant efforts, but I felt it wasn't really all that necessary in the long run.

Vacancy managed to hit the mark with its intentions. It's not a slasher movie more than a movie that tries to build tension and suspense, which is a MUCH harder route to take with horror films. Most of the time, it worked, too. Even better! Wilson, Beckinsale and Whaley were great in this flick, and I'm happy that I saw it. This wasn't the abysmal failure that it could have been. It's not particularly intelligent, but it entertained me. I also enjoyed the ending. It's sort of like they were saying, "Well, there's the story that was meant to be told, no need to spend more time after the important stuff has gone down!" I liked Vacancy. It's a better choice to see in theaters than most other horror flicks.

GRADE: B

Reviewed: 4/30/07