Review #126: Vacancy 2: The First Cut (2009)

Cast/Notable Credits:
Eric Boss (Director): Vampire Bats (2005)

Agnes Bruckner (Jessica): Blood & Chocolate

David Moscow (Gordon): Big (1988), Honey (2003)

Scott G. Anderson (Smith): Vacancy

Arjay Smith (Tanner): The Day After Tomorrow (2004)

Brian Klugman (Reece): Wishmaster (1997), Cloverfield (2008)

Vacancy Link

Trailer:



Plot:

Vacancy 2 is a prequel to Vacancy. The film takes place in 2004 at the Meadow View Inn in North Carolina. The two motel managers (Gordon and Reece) have set up hidden video cameras in one of their rooms (Room 6) and secretly tape the customers doing the "nasty". The two then turn around and sell those sex tapes on the black market for a profit. What a great idea!

One night, they witness one of their customers kill a prostitute in the room. They try to take matters in their own hands and capture the customer, Mr. Smith. But Mr. Smith convinces them that selling tapes of people getting killed are more profitable than sex tapes. They agree and become business partners with Smith. They close the motel temporary to make some modifications so they can begin their new business.

Meanwhile, a couple, Jessica and Caleb, are traveling to Jessica's parents house to introduce Caleb to her parents and drop a "I'm pregnant bomb" on them. Tagging along for the ride is Caleb's best friend in the world, Tanner.

It's late at night and the trio pulls off at the Meadow View Inn to stay the night. Little do they know, that they are the first batch of victims for a new business venture.

Villain:

Three dudes lead the way as the movie's villains. Smith is actually the scariest dude of the bunch. He's the only one of the bunch who has had a history of killing. Out of all the performances given in the movie, his was the best. Smith demonstrated a sense of hunger and enjoyment went it came to stalking, and killing. It worked for me!

The other two villains...well...let's say they didn't have it. To be frank...they were a bunch of pussies. Gordon and Reece were a bunch of Peeping Toms that were recruited by a madman. To set the record straight, Gordon looks like the guy Mason from the first film, but they ARE two different dudes. And Reece looked like the child of a Carrot Top and Shaggy (Scooby-doo) sex fling. Not too intimidating.

Cast:

My favorite hottie from Venom, (The Busty Bayou) trades in her Louisiana roots to become...Vacancy's...The Carolina Cleavage! Once again Agnes Bruckner stars in a lack luster horror film. Is it her? No. It can't be. She's too hot to have this bad of a movie streak. On the positive side, I think she smiled once in this film. Hey, that's a thousand times more than she smiled in Blood & Chocolate.

The rest of the cast was pretty small. Co-starring in the film is The Carolina Cleavage's douche bag boyfriend, Caleb. He was just another dude on the screen. He looked like some guy that would be on one of those CW or UPN shows.

Caleb's best friend, Tanner, was even worse. What an annoying, little smart *ss punk. I'll just leave it as that. Oh wait...he dies. Good.

SFX/Gore:

Despite the rather small cast, the film did manage to squeeze in 7 deaths. None of them were worth anything special. Just a couple of stabbings, and shootings...pretty boring stuff really. There was one death that irritated me, just because I could see it being foreshadowed a minute before. It's pretty obvious in the film that the person was going to die that way. Hint: it had to do with nails coming through the floor.

TNA:

Agnes "The Carolina Cleavage" Bruckner stars in the film and is pretty much the only hotness we get to see. To a degree that's fine with me. We almost get a shower scene out of her. Sorry if I got you a little excited.

While researching some things about this film over the Internet, I came across a fan (idiot) that commented on a message board that she is ugly. WTF!!? How can you even say that!!? Are you f*ckin' insane? Are you gay? Are you blind? Look at her. (Down below) Seriously, was that dude smokin' bad weed? Or was it a vengeful, pissed off chick at The Carolina Cleavage?

Concept:

It's another sequel that is a prequel to first film. Yep. When the first film is a mild success, and the killers are dead, we need to hop in our little DeLoreans and travel back through time and explain how we got to point A.

Normally I'm fine with anything that gets a horror movie franchise back on the big screen, but for crying out loud...why can't they do these things half way decent? It's not rocket science. It's a damn horror movie. There's a couple of simple rules when making a sequel or prequel to a movie:

1. Higher body count. Duh. I call it a push when comparing the two films. Both films kept the count under double figures. Boo! Hiss! I expected more out of this film.

2. More blood or elaborate deaths. Uh...yeah...right. This film MIGHT have featured a little bit more blood, but it wasn't much.

3. More TNA. We're basically trading Kate Beckinsale with The Carolina Cleavage. Pick your taste. Skinny, brunette vs. a top heavy blonde. My vote is on the blonde pictured right in distress. But still...I expected more out of this film. At least give Tanner a token hot girlfriend to get slaughtered.

4. Show the hell out of the villain. Well both films did a good job doing that.

T.Gun Factor:

When I heard that the prequel was coming out, I thought, "Good. A chance to capitalize on the franchise's great idea of stalking and murder unaware motel clients." But the movie failed me like the original. It's still a good idea and premise, but it seems that the producers keep swinging for the fence and we get deep fly outs.

Overall, it was an okay film. I thought it was slightly better than the first, but I was still a little disappointed. Especially in the ending of the film. The ending of the film makes no damn sense if the second movie is going to happen. I'll just leave it at that.

Misc. Movie Trivia:
-Film opened on January 20, 2009 and went straight to DVD
-Agnes Bruckner can speak fluent Hungarian and some Russian
-The capital of North Carolina is Raleigh