This entry was posted on Monday, August 20th, 2007 at 5:27 pm and is filed under Horror, Thriller/Mystery, V. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
Director: Nimrod Antal
Starring: Kate Beckinsale, Luke Wilson, Frank Whaley
Vacancy is the first English language project for director Nimrod Antal who caught Hollywood’s eye with the 2003 Hungarian language, subway project, Kontrol (or Control in the US) With Vacancy, Antal has created a pretty good small-scale thriller with decent performances, good action and well-done edge-of-your-seat suspense. The story is simple and fairly believable for the suspense genre, which usually bends credibility to the breaking point. Luc Wilson, who usually does comedy, shows that he can handle a change of pace here. Beckinsale’s character has less to do, perhaps, but her performance seems flat in comparison.
A married couple on the verge of divorce after the loss of a child, is traveling off the interstate when car trouble lands them at an out-of-the-way motel, where manager, Mason, played by Frank Whaley hooks them up with the honeymoon suite at no extra cost, but they get anything but a restful night’s sleep here.
Vacancy is a decent suspense genre formula film that could have used better-developed villains and more innovation. The end result is a generic thriller with little to differentiate itself from the scores of others to choose from. It’s not a bad movie and suspense fans might like it, but with Fracture on the New Release shelf, I would go for that one first.
