video review : Vacancy

video review : Vacancy

This is a slasher flick with not a lot of characters or plot twists. It’s just the simple story of a married couple who, after their car breaks down on a lonely road, reluctantly decide to take refuge in the only overnight shelter within walking distance; The Pinewood Motel.

That’s where the tension begins; the kind you feel when you suddenly hear a loud banging on your door in the middle of the night. The game, played by sadistic voyeuristic killers, gets a tad mundane after a while, but the plot lodges enough scares to last till checkout.

my rating : 4 of 5

2007

video review : Meadowland

video review : Meadowland

A man and woman lose their kid. That’s not a euphemism for death. They literally lose him at a gas station one day. The presumption is that he was kidnapped; the premise for a potentially engrossing story; but director Reed Morano ruins it by skipping to the boring epilogue. That means we’re forced to watch the parents mope as uneventful month by uneventful month goes by.

The movie focuses more on the woman, played by Olivia Wilde, as she goes down a spiral that is odd and a little absurd. Eating old cookie crumbs, smoking crack, having sex with strangers; her naked ass in the sex scene is the best part; and stalking little boys may be a part of her personality, but it seems unlikely simply losing a child of her own would make her do such things.

my rating : 2 of 5

2015