Suspense a little thin in motel thriller 'Vacancy'

Carla Meyer, Sacramento Bee

Published April 20, 2007 at midnight

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Thrillers set in sleazy roadside motels require a few extra steps these days. Having characters experience car trouble on a deserted road remains a timeless device, but cutting off their ability to communicate isn't so easy in an era when most everyone carries a cell phone.

Vacancy addresses the phone issue by having unhappily married travelers David and Amy (Luke Wilson and Kate Beckinsale) encounter a lack of reception before their phone gets crushed. Without the cell phone, it could be any time: the late 1950s or early '60s, when the Pinewood Motel appears to have been built, or the '70s, when David and Amy's room was last cleaned.

Though this film wears out its welcome even at a scant 80 minutes, its retro storytelling still holds some appeal. Featuring a very basic concept and only a few characters, Vacancy, written by Mark L. Smith, sometimes seems like a stage play. Or a teleplay.

As David and Amy pull into a gas station, you half expect Rod Serling to emerge from the shadows and address the camera. Instead, an overly friendly attendant (Ethan Embry) appears, telling them he can provide a temporary fix for their car, which started making noises after David spun out trying to avoid a raccoon.

The extra time on the road does the movie good, at least on an acting level. The marital tension inside the car sometimes matches the tension created later, when David and Amy are terrorized in their room.

Amy disapproves of David's decision to take a shortcut and of David in general. Beckinsale plays chilly contempt quite well, and Wilson shows how exhausting dealing with such contempt can be.

A tragedy has driven a wedge between them and prompted Amy to check out with the help of prescription drugs. This story element is a bit overdramatic for a slight genre film, but it makes Amy more sympathetic and underscores the effort it takes for her to go into action mode later.

The car breaks down not too far down the road, leaving the pair with little choice but to hoof it back to the motel. Once there, David turns princess, informing the manager (Frank Whaley), when he dares to ask for ID, that he's not planning to abscond with any towels.

Such condescension hints that Vacancy might turn into a tale of yuppie scum getting their comeuppance. But that would only work if the manager weren't completely off-putting and weird.

Whaley overdoes the oddball act, and the quirky angles from which director Nimrod Antal shoots him suggest he's supposed to be comic relief. But the character is neither funny nor menacing. He's a bust.

As there are no other guests, the manager probably has something to do with the mysterious pounding on David and Amy's side door from the room next door. Their captors tip them off early that things are amiss, via strategically placed videotapes as well as the pounding. They're recording, and savoring, the couple's fear.

Sick stuff, certainly, but not always suspenseful. Since the story unfolds in a limited space and we know the villains are nearby, it's not necessarily a jolt when one pops up.

Yet one mystery continues to burn throughout the picture: Was the raccoon in on the whole thing?

Vacancy

Murders in a run-down motel.

Grade:C
Rated:R
Running Time:80 minutes

Keep on driving!Where's a Motel 6 when you need one? Vacancy isn't the first movie that has encouraged travelers to do some car camping. Five other places where Tom Bodett most certainly won't leave a light on for you:

• The Overlook Hotel in The Shining

Forget Room 237 - the scariest thing about the Overlook is a business plan that closes a Colorado hotel during the winter because there's too much snow. Can't someone set up a rope-tow?

• The Slovakian hostel in Hostel

Tourists check in for the bountiful sex and get tormented by power tools instead.

• Sleazy Nevada motel in Identity

Ten strangers are picked off one by one after being stranded at the same motel during a rainstorm. But did this motel even really exist?

• The Bates Motel in Psycho

Think twice about showering at film's creepiest roadside lodge.

• Crystal Cove State Park cottages in Beaches

Barbara Hershey checks into Cabin No. 13 . . . and dies! OK, more weepy than creepy, but we won't be staying there any time soon.

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