The long and winding road that Amy and David Fox (Kate Beckinsale and Luke Wilson) drive down has an already ominous feel before the couple swerve off to avoid a raccoon. They bicker about his impatience and her “Zoloft/Prozac cocktail” as they pull into the Pinewood Motel and garage to see if the car can handle the ride home. The mechanic (a brief Ethan Embry) fixes it, but only a mile back into the trip, the car breaks down again. The old Pinewood seems their only option as the mechanic is gone until morning.
Vacancy is a beast of atmosphere and pacing, putting emphasis on the claustrophobia not only within the underground maze the motel is built on but in the rooms and parking lot of the grungy one-nighter. Any shot outside seems cornered-in by the structure itself, giving the parking lot the feel of a stage where all the action is hidden.
For cheap thrills, however, Vacancy has teeth and a relentless attitude towards terror. From the minute the two characters enter the hotel, the fright becomes gleefully rampant and Smith’s script kicks it into high-gear, baiting the film with tricks to keep the audience intrigued by what is: basically, two scared people in a room. With Vacancy, Antal proves that he has the chops to become an auteur of sleaze, deftly tuning movies that are considered in bad taste.
Check out the full review of Vacancy at FilmCritic.com
— Chris Cabin
Copyright 2007 FilmCritic.com
