Packs a lot of old-fashioned shocks into its taut 80-minute running time.
Vacancy (2007)
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Reviews Counted:117
Fresh:64
Rotten:53
Average Rating:5.5/10
Consensus: Vacancy's restraint with gore is commendable, the thin characters and B-movie cliches less so.
Rated: R [See Full Rating] for brutal violence and terror, brief nudity and language.
Runtime: 2 hrs
Genre: Horror/Suspense
Theatrical Release:Apr 20, 2007 Wide
Box Office: $18,986,844
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... 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. [More]
Starring: Kate Beckinsale, Luke Wilson, Frank Whaley, Ethan Embry
Starring: Kate Beckinsale, Luke Wilson, Frank Whaley, Ethan Embry
Director: Nimrod Antal
Director: Nimrod Antal
Screenwriter: Mark L. Smith
Producer: Hal Lieberman
Composer: Paul Haslinger
Studio: Screen Gems
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Release:
Aug 14, 2007
Reviews for Vacancy
From the nifty Saul Bass-inspired opening credits until the end, Vacancy is persistent in streamlining its thriller tropes.
For a thriller about torture killing for fun and profit, there's actually very little blood compared to say, the plasma-drenched Hostel, although it's plenty scary and the videotapes are appropriately nasty.
The point of Vacancy is the terror, not the torture. Horror is vastly more effective when left to the mind's eye and it is what we can't see in Vacancy that truly frightens.
It wants to be Hostel for nice, respectable folks, an objective that ultimately seems to be rather pointless in spite of the obvious talent behind and in front of the camera.
Short, sharp and to the point, Vacancy has a single goal, and that is to scare the hell out of you. It's not as gleefully sadistic as, say, Hostel, but it will give you one very rough night's sleep. Naturally, I mean that as a compliment.
Lean, mean and without a single frame of self-conscious, aren't-we-cool humor in its 81 minutes, Vacancy is exactly the movie the bloated Grindhouse should have been.
It has that kind of stupid energy, unhindered by logic, and it does eschew some of the more by-the-numbers crap you see in corporate horror films today.
An insufferable, poor-taste thriller devoid of substance and almost completely free of scares, not to mention original ideas.
A quick and dirty job, a mean little movie ripping off the atmosphere and decorations of Psycho and a half-dozen other horror-thriller classics.
You start to think you're going to get a first-rate psychological thriller and instead you get third-rate schlock, with some legitimate scary moments but no insight into the motivation behind [Frank Whaley's character's] psychosis.
Considering the movie gets sillier as it goes along, relying on car stunts and gunplay to get to the ambiguous, unsatisfying finish line, it’s unclear why [director] Antal wanted Vacancy to be his American debut.
There's no agenda in Vacancy other than to keep you in a state of nervous collapse for 85 minutes, but [director] Antal fulfills it honorably for the most part.
Antal is a little too gleeful in showing the dank motel and the seedy snuff films, suggesting the movie's biggest vacancy is in its makers' souls.
The year’s first great horror/thriller and for fans of the genre it’s a must-see.
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