Vacancy

A squabbling couple (Luke Wilson, Kate Beckinsale) check into a motel in the middle of nowhere, where they find a videocassette containing what looks very much like a snuff-film recording several murders—all of them apparently committed in that very room. Obviously, these two have never seen Psycho, but director Nimród Antal and writer Mark L. Smith certainly have—even the credits evoke Hitchcock’s classic (Antal and Smith toss in an homage to The Birds, too, with Wilson and Beckinsale banging on a window to warn an unsuspecting victim). Every cheap trick in the slasher-flick book is crammed into the movie’s measly 80 minutes, and pretty much bungled. There is one source of real suspense, though: wondering what Wilson and Beckinsale ever did to deserve a stinker like this. Did they lose a bet?