This article is kind of a dodge; there’s some actual news about the DTV Vacancy 2 down at the bottom of the page, but I have my doubts that anyone is really all that worried about it.

The point here is to lead into a little gush about Nimrod Antal, the director of the first film. We never reviewed Vacancy. It was on my list to see last year for ages, based on Antal’s film Kontroll, and I never got around to it. It hit DVD, I still didn’t see it, we still didn’t review it. These things happen.

But when I finally did get around to catching it a couple weeks ago I was happy to see that I hadn’t been interested in an empty shell. Vacancy has it’s share of problems, notably an approach which is all too happy to fit into the current torture porn genre. But Wilson and Beckinsale are better than I expected, Frank Whaley makes a fun antagonist and, more than anything else, I was almost amazed by the directorial efficiency of Antal. He knows exactly what he’s doing and why, and works shots with a surgical precision. The movie is far more taut than it has any right to be, because Antal is in total control and never lets the reigns go for a moment. Most movies in the genre get a little interested giggle out of me at best; Vacancy, with a distinct lack of gore, had me writhing. I think of this movie along the same lines as Hostage, even though they’re nothing alike.

So I see the film’s title, or that of the sequel, and my eyes can’t help themselves. I know Antal has nothing to do with the follow-up and I’ll probably never see it. The plot is all too similar (When Jessica, her fiancé Caleb and Caleb’s buddy Tanner check into the lonely Meadow View Inn in the middle of rural nowhere, they have no idea that the motel is run by a homicidal maniac and two vicious greedheads who are making a bloody dollar by selling snuff films on the black market.) which leads me to wonder if this is supposed to be related to the original. Maybe in that back roads of Tennessee sort of way. Bloody Disgusting reports that Agnes Bruckner will top the film directed by Eric Bross. Until one of you writes in to say that I’ve absolutely got to see it I’ll be content to wait for Antal’s new flick, Armored.