Editor Reviews:

Product Description:
When David (Luke Wilson) and Amy Fox's (Kate Beckinsale) car breaks down in the middle of nowhere, they are forced to spend the night at the only motel around, with only the TV to entertain them... until they discover that the low-budget slasher videos they find in their room were all filmed in the very room they're sitting in. With hidden cameras now aimed at them... trapping them in rooms, crawlspaces, underground tunnels... and filming their every move, David and Amy must struggle to get out alive before they end up the next victims on tape.

Amazon.com:

A confined setting is a useful tool for thriller-makers, and Vacancy is definitely boxed in: a rundown 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, decadent) 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

Stills from Vacancy (click for larger image)

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By the Director

Rating : - Everything was great...except for the ending...
This is definitely not a movie to watch all by yourself. This is the kind of movie you watch when you wonder if everything has already been done, and nothing will scare you anymore. Who needs ghosts, devil worshiping murderers, or any kind of the supernatural when you have good old fashioned realistic type of events that COULD happen to you?

Amy and David got off the interstate (BIG mistake) and found that they were having car trouble. Since the mechanics had all gone home for the night, they decided to stay overnight in a creepy motel, since there was nothing else around. The place was run by an equally creepy manager, played by Frank Whaley, who I haven't seen since In the Company of Men.

Even though the hotel was quite dirty and run down, the couple starts to finally relax when someone keeps banging on, not only the door to their room, but the door to the neighboring room. As everyone does in a scary movie, you hear crazy sounds, you investigate, even if you shouldn't. In between trying to find out who is attempting to break in and planning an escape route, David notices some tapes on top of the VCR. Every tape he checks out has people being attacked and killed. Strangely, they all take place in the same room, which is starting to look very familiar...

What follows is an adrenaline filled thrill ride with lots of action, and a few plot holes. VACANCY is a short movie (85 mins) which leaves no extra time for love making scenes or nudity, which some horror film directors feel is necessary to keep us interested. There is no need. This is the kind of movie that leaves you yelling at the screen and discussing with company would YOU would do in that situation. Though I thought that the ending was somewhat weak, I think that the rest of the movie makes up for it. VACANCY 2 will be coming in 2009, and even though it will probably be like a lot of other sequels, that's not going to stop me from watching it.

Recommended if you need a little adventure that will keep you checking the locks and windows for the night.