I generally don’t like horror movies. I generally don’t like movies that star Luke Wilson. So why in the world would I waste my time and go see Vacancy, a horror movie starring Luke Wilson? Because I had some hope for it. It was directed by Nimród Antal, the man responsible for 2003’s deliciously bizarre Hungarian sci-fi import Kontroll; about a subway ticket collector who solves a series of grizzly murders. But, unfortunately, I was let down. And I’m mad about it. So like a slasher hell-bent on bloodletting, let me take my gory revenge on the film that sucked 80 minutes worth of life-force from my soul.Vacancy is a moronic bore of a horror movie. It is as if everyone involved in the film made a conscious effort to make the most derivative, mindless stew of horror movie clichés to ever be captured on celluloid. (For my own entertainment I am going to bold all the horror movie clichés as I recap the premise to this movie.)
Vacancy stars Luke Wilson and Kate Beckinsale as bickering yuppie couple Amy and David Fox, who get stranded on a back-road after their pricey BMW breaks down. We quickly find out post-traumatic stress caused by the death of their young son a few years previous is causing the former love-birds to divorce. This is their last trip together.
The Foxes wind up at a creepy motel named the Pinewood, which is run by some hillbilly locals. Of course, the hillbilly locals turn out to be sadistic madmen who trap the unsuspecting travelers in the honeymoon suite with plans to torture and kill them with freakishly long knives, while wearing scary masks and videotaping the mayhem. The Foxes must escape back to civilization before they become the stars of the next Pinewood produced snuff film.
While watching the movie, I began pondering “Is this supposed to be like Scream? Am I supposed to be laughing at how preposterous it all is, and value this director’s post-modern appreciation for a genre that he loves? I mean, how many clichés do you have to put into a movie before it becomes satire? If there was an inkling that the director and the cast were in on the joke Vacancy would be an exciting movie. Instead, the most exciting part of this putrid cinematic experience was when I got up to go to the restroom and almost tripped down the stairs.
Antal manages to suck the tension out of every potentially scary circumstance and besides some cheap shock techniques which have become the crutch of weak horror movies of late (i.e.: quiet… quiet… quiet… LOUD!!), there is not one point in the movie that make your hands sweat.
And let’s talk for a moment about casting, or more accurately, miscasting. First off, Luke Wilson and Kate Beckinsale wrongly portray their characters as snobby urbanite pricks rendering them completely unsympathetic. In fact, they were so convincing at looking down their noses at their rural pursuers, one would have to imagine they aren’t really acting, just playing loosely fictionalized versions of themselves. Watching these insufferable yuppies expire in creatively painful ways would have been much more entertaining.
And it should be a rule (if it wasn’t already) that Ethan Embry is not allowed to play a murderer. He was Rusty in National Lampoon’s Vegas Vacation for fuck sake! He was Mark, the dorky record store clerk in Empire Records! He’s not intimidating.
Also, I feel bad for poor Frank Whaley. The guy has been in every indie film under the sun and he’s still only really recognizable as the dude Sam Jackson shoots at the beginning of Pulp Fiction. I hope he didn’t think this was going to be his big chance at Hollywood stardom. Because if he went into this movie with as much optimism as I did, I’m sure carving up a few yuppie movie producers is looking mighty tempting at the moment.
And I say go for it, man. Let it out. It feels good.
