Don't you just hate it when TV news shows go undercover and start poking around hotel rooms, especially with those blue lights they use to show things invisible to the naked eye, not only in the carpeting, but also in the sheets and other bed coverings? It's enough to make you want to sleep in your clothes and never remove your shoes, and clearly not want to imagine what went on in the room and that bed before you got there.
Of course, being humans, we can't stop such wandering of the mind, no matter how disgusting such resultant mental pictures might turn out to be. Then again, few would imagine what's been going on down at the Pinewood Motel, one of those remote places that may have been halfway nice a half-century ago, but now gives the description "flea-bag" a bad name. You know, the type that make you wonder who would actually stay in one nowadays, and the kind that often show up in horror flicks or suspense thrillers.
Such is the case in "Vacancy," a taught little horror flick where the proprietors of said establishment have been watching "Saw," "Hostel" and other such sadistic flicks a few too many times on slow days, which, in their case, occurs year-round. To be more accurate, they've been watching their homemade versions of said pictures, commonly known in polite society as "snuff films" and have left some in various units as the only source of in-room entertainment.
And so wanders in the next potential stars, uh, victims, Luke Wilson and Kate Beckinsale playing an unhappily married couple who've literally and figuratively become lost and broken down somewhere between resentment and despair. In usual movie fashion, there's a past trauma that's splintered them, but that must be shoved into the backseat when they realize the unique sort of hell into which they've stumbled (via those videotapes that show the sadism occurring in the very room in which they're staying).
For a while, director Nimród Antal delivers a workable and, more importantly, believable thriller. Working from a script by Mark L. Smith, he doesn't waste much time in establishing who and where the characters are in their lives, or what's about to occur. When the motel room phone starts ringing followed by loud banging on doors with no one there to explain such occurrences, the effect truly is creepy and unnerving.
Of course, the film is following the usual horror plot playbook that goes through the standard notions, such as the car breaks down at night, there's no cell phone service, and the guy at the front desk is too creepy for his own and certainly his guests' good, etc.
Knowing the basic plot, I was wondering how the filmmakers were going to pull off the film once the premise (a couple trapped in a motel by homicidal maniacs) was established, and was curious if they'd keep everything set in just the one motel room, somewhat akin to what Richard Donner tried with the title place in "Phone Booth."
Following an aborted escape and run for the hills effort that results in the couple chased back into their room, it certainly seemed that would be the case. Yet, and perhaps sensing the potential numbing repetition of that one lone locale, the filmmakers attempt to open up things via underground dirt tunnels in which both the killers and potential victims can travel.
By the time that happens, however, the film is up to its ugly little neck in the usual conventions of the genre, and thus has great difficulty trying to maneuver in any sort of novel or unpredictable fashion. It doesn't help that we don't like or care about Wilson and Beckinsale's characters (due to their introductory snipping at each other) -- except by default -- or that the killers are barely personified (beyond Frank Whaley as the creepy manager/clerk, the others are just rote bogeymen).
If anything, the filmmakers can be credited for not drawing out things unnecessarily, as the film clocks in at a scant 80 some minutes, including the credits (which, as far as the opening ones are concerned, are done quite well in establishing the aura of what's to follow). I just wish the film didn't devolve into a standard thriller with all of the usual clichés and conventions, even if the filmmakers do put a slight, if nevertheless unsatisfactory twist on some of what's to be expected.
Thanks to that short running time, however, as well as the early suspense, the film isn't a chore to sit through. That is, as long as you don't mind the ugly subject matter that puts a new meaning to The Eagles when they sang, "You can check out anytime you want, but you can never leave." "Vacancy" rates as a 5 out of 10.
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