Coming straight to DVD next week sans Kate “Super Hot” Beckinsale, is Vacancy 2 worth checking into? Check out the answer inside.

I like a good horror movie, so I am a bit conflicted when it comes to the movie The Strangers.

One of our snoopy readers gives us an update on the straight-to-dvd horror prequel.

At root, Vacancy is a horror movie about two characters who gradually become aware that they’re two characters within a horror movie, but Antal keeps the tone straight-faced, blessedly avoiding any Scream-style, self-aware cheekiness. Packed full of conventional set-ups, the film stars Luke Wilson and Kate Beckinsale as a married couple on the verge of divorce, on their way home from Beckinsale’s mother’s home on a side road, having made the fundamental mistake of getting off the interstate. (Never get off the main road!) A lot of “we’re not lost!” bickering ensues, then the car breaks down, the mechanic can’t fix it till morning and there’s a nearby motel with no other guests, only a creepy night clerk (a mustachioed Frank Whaley). Beckinsale refers to their stay in the filthy room they rent as their “one last great adventure together,” but she is unaware of the real adventure about to unfold! In a well-crafted sequence of Wyler/Toland-esque close-ups—the film is full of artsy angles and is gorgeously lit, courtesy cinematographer Andrzej Sekula, of Pulp Fiction fame—Wilson starts popping-in video tapes lying on top of their room’s television set, finding a series of gruesome snuff films that he slowly begins to realize have been filmed in the very room he and his wife occupy. With hardly a moment to think, the events that start off the tapes begin to happen to them: there’s deafening banging on the wall; the power flicks on and off; the door, chained shut, rattles on its [Due to Content Scraping and Theft, we have been forced to try abbreviated feeds. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause and woud very much appreciate you clicking through to view the full article on FilmSchoolRejects.com]