Critical: Vacancy

Critical is a series of examinations about media in popular culture. It's an explicit look, which means those who don't want key plot points revealed to you should likely avoid continuing. Critical does not even know what the word spoilers MEANS.

I liked The Strangers better.

I liked The Strangers better.

Vacancy came first and it has roots (however tenuous) in an urban legend that I have always been a bit amused by, but I do prefer The Strangers to Vacancy. It's a little hard to put my finger on why, exactly, as they are basically the same movie.

The premise is that a couple on the rocks is trapped in a single location by a pair of maniacs who are first trying to scare them and then trying to murder them. They employ a lot of the same tricks; the killers bang on walls to frighten their victims and freak out the audience, and both movies have scenes where one of the killers (both masked, of course) wander through the background of the scene unbeknownst to their victims, and they work well in both movies.

I think what it boils down to is that The Strangers succeeds in two places that Vacancy did not. Most noticeably, The Strangers had Liv Tyler and Scott Speedman, neither one any great shakes as an actor, and Vacancy has Luke Wilson and Kate Beckinsale (ditto), but given the choice I'll pick Tyler and Speedman. Luke Wilson does an ok job, but having seen Beckinsale in Underworld and Van Helsing (ick), I really can't see her as a damsel in distress. You may disagree of course, as it's entirely possibly she has played plenty of damsels in distress in movies I haven't seen, but either way she's no Hilary Swank.

The Strangers also succeeds because it doesn't have a lame ending. Vacancy ends on a happy note, which I would be ok with if it wasn't an impossibly happy note. Luke Wilson should have bled out long before the final scene. One could argue Liv Tyler should have bled out, too, but Speedman was dead and it was clear that Tyler was seriously messed up. She also didn't take a knife to the gut, so I can totally get behind her managing to cling to life while Luke Wilson should have been pushing up daises.

Mildly recommended, as a rental.