Vacancy

During a routine road trip, Amy Fox and her husband David pull into a desolate motel after car trouble, hoping for a quick fix. They soon uncover a wall of hidden cameras watching every room, a cold sign that someone is recording their every move. Realizing their chances of escape depend on silence and speed, they search for an exit while evading the unseen observer. The motel corridors feel like a trap as fear tightens with each creaking floorboard and flickering light. The quiet lobby, the empty stairwell, and the looming danger outside heighten the feeling that help may never arrive. With Kate Beckinsale as Amy and Luke Wilson as David, the couple's ordinary night devolves into a high stakes struggle against an unseen audience.

Directed by Nimród Antal from a script by Mark L. Smith, Vacancy arrived in 2007 as a lean psychological thriller. It fuses a single location with a tense survival premise and echoes classic man against environment thrillers for modern audiences.

Vacancy earned about 35.3 million worldwide on a 19 million budget, delivering a modest but solid return for a mid range horror release. It performed best domestically and helped establish Kate Beckinsale and Luke Wilson in the thriller space.

Though not a franchise builder, Vacancy helped define late 2000s thrillers by turning a roadside motel into a claustrophobic trap powered by surveillance for viewers. Its premise of hidden cameras raising the stakes has echoed in later horror films about watching and being watched, influencing ways stories exploit ordinary spaces.

Critics greeted the lean setup with mixed reactions, praising brisk pacing and the performances while noting the plot’s simplicity. The film probes fear in confinement, ethics of surveillance, and how spaces become dangerous when unseen watchers decide what happens next, making viewers consider what they would do right now.