Kate Beckinsale). The pair’s marriage is busted up, and through a thicket of bitter bickering (David attacks Amy’s “Zoloft-and-Prozac cocktail”) they’re returning from one last trip together before finalizing their divorce. When their car breaks down, the duo end up at a creepy motel with an oddball manager named Mason (Frank Whaley, sporting serial killer Aviator glasses and a little, up-combed pompadour that’s an apparent tribute to Sam Rockwell).

The couple resign themselves to a tense and uncomfortable night together, but no sooner do they acquaint themselves with the characteristically ratty details of a rundown room (natty bedcovers, brown water trickling from the faucet) than they hear frantic banging from the room next door. When it continues and they complain about the noise to Mason, he informs the Foxes that they’re the motel’s only guests. Seeking to unwind, David pops an unmarked videotape in the VCR, and discovers a snuff film shot in the very room they’re in. Figuring correctly that they’re next on the victim list, David and Amy try to escape, but quickly find out that their jumpsuit-sporting captors are toying with them in an attempt to further ratchet up the couple’s panic and increase the sadistic appeal of their puppet-master production.

Having similarly wrung tension from confined locations in Control (Hungary’s entry a few years back for Best Foreign Language Film, and a movie set almost entirely on the Budapest subway system), director Nimrod Antal locates some primal, gut-level reactions to darkness, jarring noise, faceless killers and the like. He’s aided by leering camerawork from cinematographer Andrzej Sekula (Pulp Fiction, Reservoir Dogs) that makes heavy use of close-ups. The film’s violence-for-entertainment’s-sake angle feels a bit hollow, though that’s admittedly the equivalent of criticizing a shark. Where things come apart, though, is in the movie’s final third, which leans heavily on arbitrariness.

Housed in a regular Amray case with a crisply photographed accompanying cardboard slipcover, Vacancy is presented in both full screen and 2.40:1 anamorphic widescreen. Owing to that fact — and the inclusion of a dozen preview trailers, for films like Hostel: Part II, Revolver, Perfect Stranger, Bobby Z and the forthcoming 30 Days of Night — the interface is awfully slow-moving. Subtitles come in English and French, and the movie’s Dolby digital 5.1 soundtrack is a solid one. Supplemental extras consist of a 90-second tracking shot alternate opening for the film (including a helicopter, a big budget eater), as well as another snipped scene involving a raccoon. There’s also nine full minutes of distressed snuff films — the thrill-kill movies presented within Vacancy — which is a bit unnerving. The big extra, though, is a 21-minute making-of featurette, which includes copious interview snippets with the cast and crew. Writer Mark L. Smith cops to the inspiration being the fact that he and his wife used to own a dude ranch in Colorado open only four months a year, but Glenn Gainor and other producers mainly content themselves with merely re-telling the film’s story, and repeating how great everything is. Admittedly, an audio commentary track would’ve been stretching it here, but more from Antal would have been a plus. C+ (Movie) C+ (Disc)