'Vacancy'

Don't be fooled by the Hitchcockian opening credits, the "Psycho" by way of "Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer"-"The Ring"-YouTube plot points. Don't be overly impressed that "Vacancy" was directed by the estimable Nimr d Antal, Hungarian director of the atmospheric and chilling "Kontrol." "Vacancy" is strictly by-the-numbers horror.

Still, it's done with a little style, a minimum of fuss. At least the first two acts are. But that third act?

You'll check out long before the movie does. Luke Wilson and Kate Beckinsale are David and Amy, a road-tripping couple whose marriage is on the rocks. There's a child they talk about who isn't in their BMW with them.

Something bad happened, and it's torn them apart. David's taken "a short cut." There's the inevitable BMW breakdown.

Amy holds her phone in the air and says, also inevitably, "Great. No signal." A solitary service station offers no help.

There's a motel next door. They should have named it "The Tony Perkins Do-Drop-Inn," it's so obvious. Seriously, I'm guessing screenwriter Mark L.

Smith is still laughing that he was paid for all this recycling. The creep behind the counter at this motel is played, in bug-eyed close-up, by Frank Whaley. The mechanic at the garage is played by Ethan Embry.

They're both good at giving bad vibes. "Let's just gut it out for the night," says David, in an unfortunate choice of words. They try the TV in the room, then load a video left on top of the set.

It's a snuff film. It was shot in that same room. David sees the lenses of hidden cameras.

This is what has happened to others who stayed there. This is what will happen to them. Very little happens that follows that you or anybody who saw "Saw" or "Psycho" or any non-supernatural horror film of the last 40 years won't see coming.

You could write the plot -- and the ad campaign - in your sleep. "You check in, you never check out." Antal, who created a spooky underworld and its denizens on the Budapest subway for "Kontrol," doesn't have a lot to work with here.

And I'm not just talking about Luke Wilson. He doesn't use that one-room claustrophobia well, doesn't deliver lip-smacking villainy from his snuff-film crew, and makes guns the easy way out of this fix. But you may be pulled to the edge of your seat in spite of yourself.

The reason movie formulas return again and again is that they work, time after time. Antal lets the suspense and tension fizzle away. He ignores the moral complexity of what violence does to victim and victimizer.

He fails to "finish," by botching the table-will-turn moments. The ending is simply a disaster, a classic cop-out. Thus, we're left with "gotchas" that don't "getcha," all set in a motel even Janet Leigh wouldn't be caught dead in.

VACANCY is a Sony Pictures release directed by Nimr d Antal from a script by Mark L. Smith. Running time: 80 minutes.

Rated R for brutal violence and terror, brief nudity and language. Opens today at area theaters. to the Hartford Courant today and receive up to 50% off!

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Loved the cameos by real skaters, too. 300: a great movie full of visual effects and graphics which made it different and much better. Acting was great, director did a wonderful job and chose great actors, full of action, and it is based on a true story.