Friday Review
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Immensely watchable -- Vacancy
Genre: Thriller
Director: Nimrod Antal
Cast: Kate Beckinsale, Luke Wilson, Frank Whaley
Storyline: A couple checks into a motel after a car breakdown, end up as targets for a serial-killing snuff filmmaker.
Bottomline: Quite scary!
The best part about this small, almost home-made, compact thriller is its brevity is and how it still manages to scare you now and then.
With a reasonably scary premise of a couple forced to stay in a remote motel with no guests, after their car breaks down, the director escalates the tension by making the most of the mood of an eerie night, punctuated by sudden banging on the door and smart play of light.
Not run-of-the-mill
With a plot like this, ‘Vacany’ could have easily fallen into the trap of being a run-of-the-mill game of hide and seek between the hunter and the hunted with the hunted always outsmarting the hunter.
Director Nimrod Antal manages to keep it plausible all through, without really bothering too much to set-up an elaborate climax where both the killers and their victims die many times. With just a handful of characters, there aren’t too many possibilities in any case, and Antal manages to make these limitations engaging.
It is the unpredictability that makes Vacancy immensely watchable. And, there’s Kate Beckinsale for a bonus.
SUDHISH KAMATH
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Friday Review
Bangalore
Chennai and Tamil Nadu
Delhi
Hyderabad
Thiruvananthapuram
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