Vacancy 2: The First Cut |  | Director: Eric Bross
Actors: Agnes Bruckner, David Moscow, Scott G. Anderson, Arjay Smith, Trevor Wright
Studio: Sony Pictures
Category: DVD
List Price: $19.94
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Rating:  13 reviews
Sales Rank: 17853
Format: AC-3, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, DVD, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
Languages: English (Original Language), Cantonese (Subtitled), English (Subtitled), French (Subtitled), Korean (Subtitled), Spanish (Subtitled), French (Dubbed), Spanish (Dubbed)
Rating: R (Restricted)
Region: 99
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
Number Of Discs: 1
Running Time: 86 Minutes
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 7.5 x 5.3 x 0.6
MPN: 27443
UPC: 043396274433
EAN: 0043396274433
ASIN: B001KEHAEO
Theatrical Release Date: 2009
Release Date: January 20, 2009
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
Genre: Horror
Rating: R
Release Date: 20-JAN-2009
Media Type: DVD
Amazon.com
"Make sure you get it on camera!" That's the creepy mantra of the killers in Vacancy 2: The First Cut, a prequel to 2007's Vacancy. And why not a prequel? The premise of Vacancy, with its motel room rigged with video cameras (to film the murders of the unsuspecting boarders), was already in place at the beginning of that movie. So here's the backstory. One of the killers from the first film (played by Scott G. Anderson) is back, helping refine the system of instant snuff filmmaking, along with help from two mutton-headed Peeping Toms (David Moscow and Brian Klugman). Their main target this time is a trio of travelers: snuggly lovers Agnes Bruckner and Trevor Wright, and obnoxious third wheel Arjay Smith. Among the film's decent surprises (and there are a few of them) is the fact that the body count doesn't go in exactly the order you might suspect--and the whole movie actually begins with a pretty good fakeroo in that department. Nothing in the picture, which was penned by Vacation scribe Mark L. Smith, is anything more than basic chase-'n-slash, but director Eric Bross keeps the thing moving swiftly along. It also has the advantage of a real actress, Bruckner, who was so good in Blue Car as a teenager. Vacancy 2 went straight to DVD, and one couldn't make a case for theatrical release; but as straight-to-DVD goes, it's cut (sorry) above the average. --Robert Horton
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Showing reviews 1-5 of 13
Decent Prequel November 19, 2009
Tim Janson (Michigan)
If we have learned anything from horror films it is that if you are out on the road and need a place to stay for the night, find a name brand franchise. Deranged killers tend to shy away from Holiday Inns or Motel Six's. Vacancy 2: The First Cut is a prequel to the moderately entertaining 2007 film, Vacancy. This one starts with a difficult to swallow prologue about how authorities found over 200 videotaped murders at the Pinewood Motel. 200? I mean wouldn't you think that at least a few of those 200 victims might have called a friend, family member, or business associate to say, "...hey, I'm staying at the Pinewood Inn and I'll seeya tomorrow..." And maybe once they disappeared, those friends, relatives or co-workers might have told authorities that the last time they heard from them was the Pinewood Motel? I guess I'm just over thinking it...
Anyway the prologue goes onto say that this film is the story of the first victims, virtually giving away its hand as to the fate of the guests. A young couple, Jessica (Bruckner) and Caleb (Trevor Wright), and their friend, Tanner (Arjay Smith), are traveling to North Carolina when they decide to stop for the night at the Meadowview Inn. To call this place a dump would be an insult to dumps suffice to say that if the person of average common sense saw it, they'd keep driving. A quick intro will show how the motel's operators transitioned from filming secret sex tapes to snuff films with this trio as the first targets. Plans go quickly askew however and soon the three young guests are on the run from the murderous trio of motel workers.
The main thing that Vacancy 2 lacks is that it doesn't have suspense of the first film. In Vacancy, we weren't sure what was happening to the characters. Was someone merely watching them? Messing with them for fun? Here, we already know what the antagonist's intentions are so it fails to build any real tension. Other than the psychopathic Smith, the other two guys are a couple of bumbling idiots who couldn't find their toes in the dark if you removed their shoes for them.
The one definite star of the film is Agnes Bruckner. Here again we have a female hero who proves to be far more courageous and resourceful than her male counterparts. She's also far smarter than her hunters as you'll see when you watch the film. Smith (Scott Anderson) is the lone returnee from the first film as the killer and you'll see what happened to him that necessitates that he wear a mask.
Vacancy 2: The First Cut is not a great film but it's ok for a 90 minute diversion.
Not Outstanding, Still Watchable Prequel November 13, 2009
Tsuyoshi (Kyoto, Japan)
"Vacancy 2: The First Cut" is not a "sequel" to the thriller "Vacancy" (2007) starring Kate Beckinsale and Luke Wilson. This direct-to-DVD film is a "prequel" that chronicles the origin of the horrible events at the lonely roadside motel called "Meadow View Inn." Agnes Bruckner, Trevor Wright and Arjay Smithplay are the hapless travelers from a big city, who choose the wrong place to rest for the night.
About 10 or 15 minutes in, "Vacancy 2: The First Cut" shows us what kind of "business" the motel owner Gordon (David Moscow) and his partner are really engaged in. This deprives the film of urban legend-like mystery and suspense considerably, though there are still a few twists and turns in the storyline.
All in all the film is watchable with nice photography and production designs. The suspense set-pieces themselves are decent, but it is slightly irritating to see all characters - "both good" and "bad" ones - constantly making stupid decisions. Why don't they just run into the woods? Why doesn't she finish off the guy when she has a chance? While the screenplay by Mark L. Smith (who also wrote for the original) tries to develop characters (and it doesn't work much), it never explains some parts of the film that look very silly.
Unlike such terrible products as "The Cell 2," "Vacancy 2: The First Cut" remains watchable throughout. Among the many direct-to DVD sequels/prequels that attempt to cash in on the more famous originals, "Vacancy 2: The First Cut" is a better one. How much better depends on your expectation, though.
 So Bad I Can't Remember What It's About June 4, 2009
G. Teslovich
3 out of 4 found this review helpful
(1.) You check into the same cheesy motel where a dozen other movies with the same cliched theme have been a dozen times in the past 40 years. You would think someone would actually be creative and make it a 5-star high tower in Singapore or something.
(2.) You get the same obviously weird clerk that has been in the same movies.
(3.) You get the same torture and fake blood and fake screams from those same movies.
(4.) Finally, you get the same "let's chase the outnumbered girl around awhile" so she can run in circles, scream a little and look very dumb doing so.
(5.) Bad guy, badly wounded (by fire no less), escapes, but that night by himself clears out all of the bodies (including blood soak into the soil and floors) and removes all other evidence and leaves no tracks or traces to a point that police believe nothing has happened - sure!
(6.) End of movie.
Falls Short Of The Original, But Still Good In Its Own Right May 5, 2009
Stephen B. O'Blenis (Nova Scotia, Canada)
4 out of 5 found this review helpful
Vacancy 2: The First Cut follows very close to the original, with the main exception being that it's a prequel where we can see the beginnings of the whole motel-as-deathtrap theme. In place of Kate Beckinsale and Luke Wilson we have a trio - engaged couple Agnes Bruckner and Trevor Wright, and their friend Arjay Smith - that checks into the secluded motel where the psychotic staff runs their own real-life snuff video outfit, utilizing hidden cameras to film the terrorizing and killing of the hotel's occupants.
In the first Vacancy, the premise was deadly effective and seemed believable; here, it comes off contrived. Part of the problem is that it's a prequel and showing how it all came about just felt forced. Prequels often have a hard time because they often over-explain what didn't need to be explained; in horror prequels it often tries to tear away the shroud of mystery that's remained even after the villain or phenomenon had their origins partially revealed in the original. In Exorcist - The Beginning (Widescreen Edition), it worked because when they went into the backstory that had been hinted at in the original, they retained the element of the unknown by hinting at a much broader backstory way further in the past. In Ginger Snaps Back - The Beginning, it added in a much more otherworldy air of eeriness than its predecessors had. In Vacancy 2, we learn that the motel was originally a set up whereby sleazy employees secretly filmed the sexual encounters of tenants and sold the tapes on the black market; as their profit margin begins to fall they accidentally film a murder in one of the rooms, and subsequently they work out an arrangement with the killer that he keep on this track and they film their murders, switching the nature of their black market product to what they hope will be a more lucrative field. This whole angle, in contrast to the first movie, felt contrived and almost campy to me. From then on (this set-up part all gets handled in the first 15 minutes or so) the movie rapidly gets better. It never manages to match the scares and razor-taut tension of the original, but it's pretty good in its own right. The ending, however, didn't feel like it completely synced with what we know comes after it.
Alright, there's the negatives. Here's the positives: judged on its own merits, this is actually a fine horror thriller. While I said it didn't match the scares and tension of the first, that was an awfully high bar, and Vacancy 2 manages some suspense and fright of its own. It's more violent this time (most of the really vicious carnage in the first one was seen in relatively short glimpses - it was a masterpiece when it came to using measured doses of gore and brutality to suggest much more and really ratchet up the fear of what was coming around the next corner), although how much it helps the movie is up for debate. The individual scenes do raise the fright factor a bit, but it doesn't sustain its tension long enough, and after well-done examples of very brutal torture horror like Turistas (Unrated Edition) and most of the Saw series, it didn't have as much shock impact as it might have. Scenes like the victims's desperate flight into the woods, trying to hide in the dark from pursuers who know the forest much better than they do, proved more effective though. The acting in the film was well-done all-around, with frequent horror heroine Agnes Bruckner standing out as usual. The special effects were good and so was the camerawork.
Vacancy 2 had the same writer and the same producers as the original (different director, though), but I feel they may have had more success if they'd skipped the prequel aspect and had it as, say, a copycat situation in a different motel somewhere. Or just done a different horror movie with the theme of an isolated motel, but not attached directly to Vacancy. I'm a big fan of sequels and series - often the more chapters the better - but Vacancy was one horror movie that I'm not sure was really the right pick for a follow-up. It wrapped up pretty definatively, and its lack of a clearly spelled-out origin of its central premise didn't really need to be filled in.
I'm making this movie sound worse than it was. Judged by itself, it's a good horror movie that's definately worth watching, if not necessarily buying. Well made and never boring; I just personally felt it didn't live up to the first one.
 Vacancy 2 dvd April 17, 2009
Kimberly Reed
0 out of 2 found this review helpful
Thanks for my recent order.I was very pleased with my item.It was just what i ordered.It also came in a very timely manner.I would and will definatley buy from Amazon.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 13
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