Stop me if you think that you've heard this one before. A bickering couple with a tragic backstory break down in the American hinterland and check into a motel whose owner turns out to have less than benevolent intentions toward his guests.
"Vacancy" takes up the decades-old urban legend of the great American "snuff" movie in which the slaughter of unwitting victims by anonymous killers is video-taped for fun and profit. But while the material may not be the most original, Director Nimrod Antal's execution breathes new life into it, making for an unnerving experience that is at points truly disturbing, often darkly comedic and increasingly suspenseful.
Beginning with its distinctive Saul Bass-inspired credit sequence, Antal's film is disciplined and focused. Pacing is key to the Hitchcockian approach and film gives us just enough information to care about the couple in peril and just enough time and empty space for the suspense to work on our nerves without overstaying its welcome.
Luke Wilson and Kate Beckinsale are believable and even likeable in their roles, even as they begin the film by taking turns to snipe at each other. The plausibility of their performances gives the story a far greater emotional punch than you would reasonably expect from this kind of horror / thriller hybrid. Tight editing, genuinely disturbing sound design (especially the all-too-realistic screams and sobbing from the previous victims) and menacing cinematography with that knows how to use its blacks, help make this that rare genre film that is actually a credit to its genre.
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