31 DAYS OF HORROR: DAY 20

VACANCY

Luke's my favorite Wilson. I want to marry Kate Beckinsale. Frank Whaley rocks, and I've been a fan of Ethan Embry since Dutch. But boy are they miscast cast in VACANCY.

The film has a simple and effective concept and only requires a handful of actors; a husband and wife get stranded on the road and check into an isolated motel where they quickly discover their room is bugged with video cameras set up to capture them be brutally murdered. I'll take that. But the bad casting and nosedive into cliche'ville 3/4 of the way in just killed it for me. When the victims and the murderers make one bone head decision after another, suspense quickly turns to aggravation.

People seem to complain the most about the abrupt ending, but considering the film is 80 minutes and takes place entirely at a motel I welcomed it.

BEST SCENE: Before prepping for bed, Luke Wilson's character puts on some VHS tapes sitting on the motel room TV. They're snuff films, one after another, of various people being attacked and brutally murdered in a room. He begins to look around then he and his wife realize, it's the room they're in. Suddenly, the lights go out...