Vacancy

[MacGuffin]

Trailer here.

Release Date: April 13th, 2007 (wide) 

Starring: Luke Wilson, Kate Beckinsale, Frank Whaley, Andrew Fiscella, Dale Waddington Horowitz 

Directed by: Nimrod Antal (Kontroll)

Premise: When David (Wilson) and Amy Fox's (Beckinsale) car breaks down in the middle of nowhere, they are forced to spend the night at the only motel around, with only the TV to entertain them... until they discover that the low-budget slasher movies they're watching were all filmed in the very room they're sitting in. With hidden cameras filming their every move, David and Amy must struggle to get out alive before whomever is watching them can finish their latest masterpiece.

[Pubrick]

i think "masterpiece" might be overstating it.

[w/o horse]

A really well made film (personally I think really well made) that executes its hackneyed index of fears with maturity and an appreciaction for audiences who have seen this film before in other ways.

I'd like to see Antal get his hands on better material.

[MacGuffin]

I gotta say, this little thriller surprised me. At 85 minutes, it's tight and tense. I found more in line with Breakdown. The characters aren't stupid; they're given some depth. The cinematography was nicely done, especially with the use of reflections. It has it's moments of cliches and "Why'd you/Don't do that," but overall it kept me on edge.

[grand theft sparrow]

Expectations are everything sometimes.  After being greatly disappointed by Red Eye (which was also a short thriller with reviews that mentioned Hitchcock), I went into this expecting nothing and I got nothing.  It's one of the worst movies I've seen this year but at the same time, I don't have the same intense hatred for it that I have for Transformers.  Honestly, all this movie needed was a good script.  Everything else was pretty much in place. 

It's a premise that's better suited to a Silent Hill type video game than a non-interactive movie.  The opening credit sequence is a desperate an obvious nod to Psycho but the movie never comes close to delivering on it; it's more like Texas Chainsaw Massacre than anything else.  Though it does get the claustrophobic tone right; I did feel myself breathing more rapidly as I watched.  But the crap dialogue, stupid oversights throughout and a really bad ending ruin what could have been a short, tense thriller like Breakdown, as Mac suggested.

SPOILERS

So the killers can rewire the phone so that anyone making a call goes through them.  But they don't know that there are crawlspaces in the ceilings.  Nor did they have the inclination to reinforce the doors so that no one could break them down.  Come on.