Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #10271 in DVD
• Released on: 2007-10-15
• Rating: Suitable for 15 years and over
• Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
• Formats: Anamorphic, PAL, Colour, Dolby
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 82 minutes

Amazon.co.uk

A confined setting is a useful tool for thriller-makers, and Vacancy is definitely boxed in: a run-down motel way, way off the Interstate, the kind of place where unsuspecting movie characters go to get stabbed to death in the shower. If Vacancy doesn't quite live up to its Hitchcockian forbears, at least it provides 80 minutes of well-designed mayhem. You know somebody's paying attention just from the opening credits, a clever vortex with pounding music by Paul Haslinger. Then we meet unhappy couple Luke Wilson and Kate Beckinsale, driving along in the dark and forced to stay at the Pinewood Motel after a car breakdown. There's a night man (Frank Whaley, World Trade Center) in the tradition of Dennis Weaver's Touch of Evil gargoyle, but the real mess of trouble is waiting in room number 4.

Director Nimrod Antal, who scored a stylish international hit with the Hungarian thriller Kontroll, squeezes maximum juice out of the Route 66 atmosphere of the motel, although the movie doesn't get under your skin the way Kontroll did. Wilson and Beckinsale are a little too marquee-namish for this kind of heavy-breathing work, and the script doesn't give them much to play with. But hey, it's not that kind of movie. Where it really belongs is on the top half of a drive-in double bill, or maybe as a nightmare-scenario TV movie from the Seventies. Either way, it works. --Robert Horton, Amazon.com

Synopsis
This riveting thriller features Luke Wilson and Kate Beckinsale as a couple whose car breaks down, stranding them at a very dangerous hotel. Director Nimrod Antal carefully builds the suspense as the film gradually leads to horror when the hotel turns out to be a snuff film operation, with cameras everywhere and lots of truly horrific videos of past murders (shot in the same room) lying atop the TV set. The couple needs to think fast before they become the next victims. Beckinsale and Wilson play down their star wattage and get truly involved in their change-of-pace roles, sucking the audience into their situation far deeper than one might think possible. Meticulous use of the tawdry, low-rent motel setting--lots of rotted wood, stained wallpaper, and ugly sofas--provides a realistic sense of space. Intelligently crafted and unfolding practically in real time, VACANCY is edge-of-the-seat all the way. Other strong points are the punchy score from Paul Haslinger, a PSYCHO-ish credit sequence, a creepy Frank Whaley as the hotel clerk, and lots of references to films like TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE and HENRY: PORTRAIT OF A SERIAL KILLER. Thanks to all this care and attention, the scares linger longer than you might expect, so don't watch it alone.

Customer Reviews

Effective and nasty thriller/horror(You decide) with a botched ending
It struck me while watching Vacancy that if horror writers didn't have the device of isolated motels , farmhouses etc in vast countries like America , Canada, Australia half the current cannon of horror literature and cinema wouldn't exist. As it is Vacancy is yet another variation on the theme , thought it could be argued it's not horror in the traditional sense. There is no supernatural bogeyman or invidious monsters , just truly despicable people doing horrendous things. Whether you view it as pure horror or a truly nasty suspenseful thriller Vacancy works.
Married couple Amy (Kate Beckinsale) and David (Luke Wilson) are on the verge of divorce after the death of their only child. They are on their way to a social event exchanging vinegary put-downs after they realise they are lost .Then the car breaks down. It's late , too late to get help , the cell phone won't pick up a signal and they are forced to check into a remote flea pit of a motel complete with slightly creepy manager Mason (Frank Whaley) . Their room is soon assailed by loud knockings on the door and walls .Then David discovers a video player with a stack of videos on top. On playing the tapes he see's a series of brutal murders before the truly sickening truth sinks in. These murders have all been carried out in the room they are occupying and further investigation reveals hidden cameras all around the room.
What to do now? Well if you are anything like these two run around like headless chickens for five minutes which to be fair is what most of us would do. It's a pity these guys never pick on say a Jason Bourne type .The resolution would be rapid but hugely satisfying as he kicked bad guy butt. Unfortunately David isn't Jason Bourne but he slowly realises that the key to staying alive is studying the moves the bad guys make, after all the evidence is there on the tapes. So begins a games of cat and mouse with a lot of running around and shouting in-between .
Having given us a pair of believable bickering characters the film nearly blows it by having them realise their deeply forgotten long buried affection for each other but thankfully it pulls back from a soggy sentimental resolution and remembers it's an all out vicious action thriller type film and this it does brilliantly. Director Nimrod Antal ( He's a Hungarian film maker who made the film "Kontroll") cleverly moves from the graceful fluid camera work of the early scenes to something more kinetic and frantic mirroring his protagonists plight. Thankfully he eschews the usual rapid fire editing and BOO! Type scare tactics to make the last third an energetic and primeval fight for survival .
Writer Mark L Smith cops out with the ending , which after a nicely economical shock scene , seems a dreadful compromise . Without that the film would have had a far more powerful impact. The acting is good enough to convince with even Beckinsale (Sarah Jessica Parker had been given the role initially but had to drop out which is lovely for us) whose career so far hasn't hinted at any great depth of talent doing a fine job. The extras on the DVD do a good job of explaining the production but the section on Masons favourite "Snuff films" seems to be taking the inherent viciousness of the subject just a step too far. That said you don't have to watch them but you should watch the film. After all soon nowhere will free from mobile phone signals and the whole premise of films like Vacancy will be.....well vacant I suppose.

One of the lamest endings to a horror flick you'll see.
I had high hopes for this film.Things start of promisingly, if a little predictable.A bickering couple, Kate Beckinsale and Owen Wilson, break down in the middle of nowhere.They begrudgingly decide to stay the night at a run down motel.Soon though they start to hear strange noises but things really turn sinister when they discover some video tapes and realise they are to be the future stars of a snuff movie! So far so good.

**SPOILER ALERT**

What completely ruins this film is the appallingly lame ending.I was really expecting an evil twist to precedings but all you get is our heroine managing to dispatch with all the villains, call for the Police, and find that her husband wasn't actually killed when stabbed by one of the gang!I can't remember when I was so annoyed at a films finale, utterly lame, and one of the most disappointing movies of the year.

Very tense although a little rushed.
The set up for the movie was great. A couple (Luke Wilson and Kate Beckinsale) rent a room in a creepy motel after an unfortunate breakdown only to find themselves targeted by an unknown gang who seem to be making snuff films in the very same room as the couple are staying in. After this theres banging on doors and chases through underground tunnels as the two protagonists try to survive the night without becoming the next snuff victims.

The first 40 minutes are genuinely creepy and slightly disturbing. After they find the tapes however, the film turns into a chase thriller rather than a horror which it promised in the trailer. Still, at only 80 mins, the film is fast paced and leaves out any gory scenes that most horror films have recently resolved to for scare tactics making this a little gem of a movie in the genre of suspense & horror.