Film Review: Vacancy

By: DThompson | in: Movies |

Hello! In just half a paragraph or so I make mention of an “engaging Bernard Hermann-like piece of music” - the very cool, very retro main theme for Vacancy by former Tangerine Dream member Paul Haslinger. If you would like a little mood music as you read, press play and continue!

I know I’m supposed to be reviewing the new thriller Vacancy, but it’s hard for me to concentrate as I’m so excited over Dirty Dancing coming back into theaters for its 20th anniversary. I’ll do my best to contain my delight and concentrate on the task at hand.
I have to admit I held out little hope for this movie being any good at all, but it was Sunday and I was bored so I went. Sometimes low expectations can be a movie goer’s greatest ally, and this was one of those times. Vacancy, directed by the improbably named Nimrod Antal and starring Luke Wilson and Kate Beckinsale is as good as it can possibly be given the derrivative nature of its story. The Hitchcock steals start from the opening credits which feature an engaging Bernard Hermann-like piece and mutating title animation.. This moving typography and the method of spiralling ever further down to reveal new credits was no doubt supposed to suggest a maze of complexity. It’s a lot like watching the credits for North By Northwest updated for the 21st century and indicates right away that Vacancy’s goal is not so much terror but suspense.

If only the movie itself lived completely up to the promise of the credits! In many ways Antal’s film follows an easily forseeable path. Vacancy starts with a (pedictably) bickering couple as they drive down a (predictably) dark and isolated road. Soon their car has (predictably) broken down and they (predictably) end up at the broken down Bates, I mean Pinewood, Motel. Here Frank Whaley puts in a great performance as the latest incarnation of a character known as “creepy rural motel manager”. This character type was first essayed by Dennis Weaver in Orson Welles’ Touch Of Evil and soon after was memorably portrayed by Anthony Perkins in Psycho. I’m sure the Perkins incarnation is what director Antal was aiming for as he rarely misses a chance to reference Hitch in general and Psycho in particular. A few bronze quail on the check in counter are no doubt an homage to Norman Bates’ taxidermy hobby. Whaley’s creepy rural motel manager has been updated to the 21st century, or at least the late 20th as he’s still recording his evil doings on VHS tape.
When you’re telling a story told before, and has this story ever been told before, you have to concentrate on new ways to TELL your creaky, cliché-ridden, clap trap, garbage heap of a “script”. This is where Vacancy ultimately succeeds. The film is neither proud nor artistic enough not to over-amp the volume of a few key sound effects. It’s a cheap trick, but I must admit it was extremely effective on me. It’s but one of several devices used. Over and over, as Hitchcock did in several of his films, characters are seen in reflection. Reflected in mirrors, in windows, on TV screens and distortedly reflected in bathroom glass. Hardly a person in the movie is spared such a shot. Though the meaning is open to interpretation to me this suggested they were all inhabiting a world of treachery, lies and deceit; but then, that’s kindof how I view the world in general these days so maybe I was just projecting. At least this reccurent motif lends the film an eerie semi-unreal quality that helps make the viewer restive.

As the couple, weaponless for most of the film, fights to survive they are forced to compete by out-thinking their assailants. They also (predictably) re-discover their lost love. This tendency to take obvious paths is unfortunate in a movie trying for suspense as predictability is usually suspense’s mortal foe. Still, thanks to good direction, the movie actually is suspenseful, with a fast pace and a cast of pros turning in highly watchable performances. Even though I could often see where it was going the basic plot of the film (young couple trapped by snuff film freaks in isolated motel room) was interesting enough to keep me watching happily up to the especially good final receding tracking shot which seemed to promise something awful just around the corner and made for a singularly uncomfortable ending.
Verdict: Your low expectations will be why you end up loving this.

Watch the Trailer:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N37iF0F5P1A

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Posted on April 26, 2007

Comments

5 Responses to “Film Review: Vacancy”

ipodwheels @ Auto Parts Place on April 26th, 2007 12:58 am

I liked this article. First because it made reading such an experience. I always see to it to use effective pictures to engage my audience when they read my posts for my blog. It is just now however, that I have read an article that had an option to play a background song. That music was just awesome. Hahahaha. Another blog idea I might be addicted with in posting on my blog. Thanks guys.

I have yet to see Vacancy, but even from the trailer I can say that there is little in this movie that is left to the viewer’s imagination. If the directors were indeed able to pull off a good storytelling from a worn out plot, that would be awesome.

I have had my share of short movies, and it is a challenge to tell an old story in a different way. I guess that expectations really play a lot for the viewer’s satisfaction. Movies which are marketed like Spiderman and Transformers usually end up being reviewed mercilessly for they set a very high standard and then fail to deliver.

As a viewer though, I usually ignore movies that seem to use old recipes. So making people expect less may not be recommended for movies since doing so may encourage viewers to not watch them at all.

DThompson on April 26th, 2007 2:34 am

Your feelings about Vacancy very much mirrored my own going in, that is, not expecting it to be very good. As I said, your low expectations will be Vacancy’s greatest friend. I realize that’s hardly a glowing review, certainly not “It’s Psycho mixed with Saw!” which one major paper saw fit to print. Allow me a short digression. Vacancy is NOT Psycho mixed with Saw, I don’t know how much they got payola’d to write that but if you go you will NOT see Psycho mixed with Saw. What you will see is a short, fast paced, suspenseful little film with no delusions of grandeur or originality.
Oh, I’m glad you liked the “soundtrack” idea, I’d wanted to do it with my review of Grindhouse but came up with the idea just after everything had been posted. Vacancy’s credit sequence and main theme are really one of the best things about it so I’m happy to share the music.

geekgasmic.com on April 26th, 2007 9:10 pm

Film Review: Vacancy - The Plugg

Hello! In just half a paragraph or so I make mention of an “engaging Bernard Hermann-like piece of music” - the very cool, very retro main theme for Vacancy by former Tangerine Dream member Paul Haslinger. If you would like a little mood music as y…

connie montague on November 16th, 2007 11:55 am

Vacancy is not an origional movie. Before I rented it on DVD last week, I already knew that it was a remake of an old film from the 70’s or 80’s, an obscure B rated film. It was exactly as predicted by watching the origional, husband/wife broken down on road goes to out of way motel, scare tactics, previous death and the trap door to the basement, however the origional was bthe better basement scene. It is amazing that a man can take credit from this less watched ORIGIONAL film that I already saw.

The Plugg: Best Moments in Film 2007 : Maor Ezer on December 8th, 2007 6:12 am

[...] • The marvelous twist and descend, Hitchcock-to-the-nth-degree credits that opened Vacancy, made even better by Paul Haslinger’s Bernard Herman-esque title theme. If only the film could have matched up. [...]