Lightning McQueen vs Combustion Man

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Suggested by Sonic The Combustion Man is a being who would very quickly be able to melt Lightning McQueen. The difficulty in being a living car is that fire will always be a great weakness. There’s only so many ways you can fortify a car after all and none will help against this level of heat. It’s why I ultimately have to say that Lightning McQueen doesn’t stand a chance here. He can drive but he can’t hide and will ultimately go down. Combustion Man wins.

Colonel Silver vs Donald Pierce

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Suggested by Sonic Colonel Silver is a strong hand to hand fighter. He may not have kept up with the power levels in the Dragon Ball franchise but it’s safe to say that he could take out just about any ordinary joe. That’s why you should not underestimate this guy under any circumstance. To do so would be at your own peril. Donald has cybernetic parts and some super strength but lacks the technique to make this a close fight. Colonel Silver wins.

Ghirahim vs Yuna

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Suggested by Sonic Ghirahim is fast and his ability to teleport can really come in handy here. The question is, will this be enough to overwhelm someone like Yuna who can shoot out countless kinds of energy blasts and elemental moves? I think Ghirahim will find that to be a very difficult task indeed. Yuna’s main weakness in this fight is her lack of durability but she should be able to shield herself with her monsters and barriers long enough to strike him down. Yuna wins.

Darkside (KH) vs Harpnote

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Suggested by Sonic Harpnote may not be known as one of the strongest Megaman fighters out there but she can hold her own when the going gets tough. Darkside has various energy attacks up his sleeve but the guy isn’t very fast. Harpnote should be able to easily dodge all of his attacks and pelt him with the Harpnote blasts. Ultimately this will chip away at his health until he goes down. With no way to reliably counterattack, Darkside can onlyh delay the inevitable. Harpnote wins.

Voice Over! Seiyu Academy Review

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Time to check out a manga about voice acting. It’s a fairly unique premise to build the series around and works well with your classic rom-com setup. If anything I thought this series really could have been quite a bit longer. I’d have liked to see Hime get to progress more so we could see her in the bigger productions. The series really seems to end just when she has broken out of her shell with the inevitable big time skip. 12 volumes is nothing to sneeze at but something like 16-20 would have been good. All in all, this is a fun series with a satisfying conclusion.

The series focuses around Hime who is a girl that really wants to be a talented voice actress. She attends Seiyu Academy for that one goal but she does have a big weakness. The problem is that her voice…makes her sound like a gorilla. The higher pitch she tries to use, the deeper and rougher the voice comes out. It’s all frustrating for Hime because she has been practicing for so long but has not even come close to her goal. Ultimately she wants to be a “Lovely Blazer” which is what the fighters in a popular anime/music group/vocal group are called. Meeting one in person was what inspired her as a kid.

Still, dreams are only dreams until she can get close. At the school she meets up with the popular boy at school known as Senri. Senri is the opposite as he is extremely talented in any role and is seen as a prodigy. Unfortunately they don’t get off on the right foot so he really dislikes her now. (His fault because he starts off by insulting her) When a play reading for Snow White goes wrong, Hime discovers that she does have exceptional voice acting talent…for male characters. This isn’t exactly her dream though and she wants to keep it a secret. She meets up with a voice coach who makes a deal with her. She has to keep performing as a guy in secret by dressing up as a guy and living a double life. If she can pull this off for a while then he promises to make her a big star as a girl too. Hime’s double life has now begun, but how long can she keep up the act!?

Double lives tend to be fun because it just opens up so many possibilities for story telling. It’s part of what makes superheroes fun as well. Hime has to keep on deceiving everyone as she pulls off her skills to the point where she has to even live at a different place temporarily so nobody knows what’s going on. She has some family issues at home though so this is easy. (Everyone has family issues in this series) Ironically enough, she gets along with Senri really well in her alter ego but the longer she keeps up the secret, the harder it will be to tell him the truth.

So there’s a ton going on here which is part of why I said it could have been longer. For starters, she’s in her boy form so long that “Hime” can vanish for whole volumes. It becomes very rare to see her at all sometimes to the point where you get used to her other design more. Each plot also has its own set of characters. As Hime she hangs out with the dropout group where the voice actors/actresses were just not big enough to be popular. At school they all help each other to be better. As “Shiro” she hangs out with the expert music stars and directors and also meets Mizuki, a guy who ends up liking her and is quite possibly the worst character in the series although I do not think this was intentional by the series.

So lets go through each side here. I would say the Shiro plot was the strongest one since it’s really the meat of the series. Having to assume a whole new identity and keep the bluff going allows for a lot of shenanigans to occur but also shows how versatile Shiro is. She is still able to make friends quickly and everyone respects her work ethic. She is still a newbie to all of this after all but begins to improve very quickly. Even the tough director gives her a pass after a while.

While I don’t like him, Mizuki will also stick up for her. This storyline also allows us to learn more about Senri’s situation which is certainly complicated. You know that this alter ego will have to end at some point but it’s fun for the duration of the series. I think Hime should even have kept that as something to use if she’s ever in a tough spot trying to find roles as herself. Or maybe reveal it by being in a show where she plays both roles but I’m not sure how feasible that would be long-term. The more the years go by the more her Shiro disguise likely wouldn’t work. It’s the kind of thing that mainly works because she’s still a kid, well I guess teenager at this point but still on the younger side.

As mentioned, Mizuki is just a character I didn’t like at all. The guy’s a big star who is really timid after things didn’t work out with the first girl he liked. He tried his best to help her out at every corner but ultimately this caused her to think he was stifling her development and she had an outburst before dashing off. Honestly I wouldn’t say he did anything wrong there and the girl just should have spoken up. Regardless this traumatized Mizuki so with Hime he is really trying to have a balance where he helps out but lets her do her own thing.

So that’s good but then he ends up trying to make some moves on her and this is where he faltered badly. He’s the kind of character who is nice one second and then quite rude the next. You were never rooting for him to win with her at any point. His origin was sad so you want to cut him some slack but he didn’t make the double life any easier on her when he starts up with the drama. At least he gave her the glasses which could help her get into the prince voice easier.

Senri gets a big role in both sides of the plot. While he doesn’t get along with Hime at all, he does form a quick bond with “Shiro”. After all, for him it’s just easier to hang out with another guy since he at least has some experience there. Senri easily has the biggest character arc in the series and it’s one that was handled well. He slowly breaks out of his shell and learns how to live normally. I thought his plot was usually the most engaging so I was always ready to see what was going on with him.

He also has the most tragic backstory of the group. So his mother Sakura is the world’s greatest actress. She didn’t start out that skilled but had a drive like no other. She ultimately had Senri as a kid but had stopped being an ordinary person long ago. So she raised him as if they were in a movie. Every action and moment was according to the characters they played and so she didn’t see him as her son. Senri grew up with this rather twisted view of the world where everyone was faking their actions and playing roles. This led to a lot of friendships being broken and his becoming a loner.

It’s easy to see how he doesn’t know how to connect with anyone in the present. It’s not like you pick up social skills automatically. How you’re raised plays a big role there and so he was completely broken since he was raised in a way where he didn’t know what was an emotion and what was the role. In the present it makes for an interesting character trait since he really can’t tell if he is in a role or not. That’s definitely a high level of trauma.

So while Sakura’s skills are very good, this hurts her as a character quite a bit. You like to think that she would have been able to raise Senri a little better than she did but he never ended up becoming her top priority. She would always choose work first and of course work is important but Senri’s life was very nearly ruined as a young age. Without Shiro he would have only grown worse.

Shuuma is Mizuki’s friend and he wasn’t very good right from the start. He jumps right towards bullying Shiro from the start to drive him away from Mizuki. It’s the kind of petty tactic that you can’t really come back from. So while this was short lived, it’s not like he had any great moments after this to improve his character further. Fujimori is another character from the agency plot and he’s much better. The guy is rivals with Mizuki but doesn’t randomly go after Shiro to make himself feel better.

In fact, he quickly learns that teamwork is good and is very supportive the whole time. He does end up getting caught in the romance crossfire between the other characters so they’ll randomly attack him but the guy meant well. He’s a rather minor character overall but he was always entertaining.

That’s about all of the characters from the Shiro plot. Before going over to Hime’s story, just a quick reminder that Hime = Shiro. Shiro is just the cover for Hime when she has to work as a guy for a while and using the separate terms in the review is an easy way to keep the two plots separate. For the most part the storylines and characters don’t interact nearly as much as you would expect. There is some overlap like how Senri is at school and in the business but for the most part he’s more of an exception.

Hime and Shiro have the same personality so there’s no sense in talking about the character twice. Hime is a solid main character. She may not be particularly talented at the start but she doesn’t let this get her down and just keeps at it until she can be the best. We actually do get to see a lot of chapters where Hime is training and practicing various steps. I would say it’s very rare that we see this level of training so the author really did a good job in showing just how much drive she had. If any character deserved to get good then it was her.

This is also what helped Haruka to be a likable character. So in the Hime plot, he has given her the mission to pretend to be a guy for a while to get her networking experience, connections, and basically because that’s the only kind of voice she can use at the moment. He acts tough on the outside but he really does this to help her out. So when she gets bullied or talked down to, he always has her back. There was one scene in particular where they go to Hime’s house because they needed permission from her mother for something.

In the scene Hime’s mother keeps talking about her other daughter and dissing Hime the whole time. Haruka was quick to take Hime’s defense and publicly support her there. I thought it was a really pivotal moment and you always want to have an ally like that. When Hime gets sick, Haruka helps make sure she gets peace and quiet. He ends up feeling like the parental figure that Hime never had.

While Hime’s mother looks bad the whole time, none of the blame can be put on Hime’s younger sister Akane. Akane is still just a kid and while she is super talented and successful, she is never mean about it. I get the feeling she’d like to be closer to Hime but it just isn’t possible in this toxic household. Between Hime and Senri’s mothers, the series certainly has a lot of broken households where the characters weren’t raised well. At least you’re glad that Akane was able to have a successful life so far.

Then you have Hime’s friends at school who are all in the delinquent/lower class because they struggle with one form of voicework or another. First is Tsukino and her issue is that her voice is just really low. It’s hard for her to use her voice more since she got bullied for it a whole lot. Part of Hime’s role in this group is to get everyone past their fears though and gradually Tsukino gets past hers. I wouldn’t say she gets a lot of moments in the series but everyone got something to do and this was a nice enough plot.

In general I just liked how close knit the group was and how they would all have each other’s backs during the tough times. Shou is the tough punk of the group and basically isn’t doing well because he can seem like a bit of a delinquent. This comes in handy though because he doesn’t let anyone mess with them. Additionally he’s able to be friends with Ume who had a tough time being with others. Ume could be a little stuck up at times and with her talent for writing scripts, she wouldn’t take the voice actors/actresses into account. Gradually she is able to fix this.

That really wraps up both sides of the adventures here. The cast is fairly large here and they’re all balanced well. It does go back to what I was saying about the series being a little short though. With all of these characters I really think it could have been really good to have just had a few more volumes. It feels like there is still so much to do when the series ends. We didn’t really get to see everyone’s reactions to finding out about Hime, her journey into being more successful, etc. You just have to try your best to fit in the pieces when the time skip jumps in.

The artwork here is good. I wouldn’t say it’s one of the stronger Shojo titles that I’ve read in that area but the writing is able to hold it up. You’ll be blasting through each volume because it just ends up being a real page turner. The humor works well enough and balances out the more serious moments here. I suppose the romance wasn’t bad. Any scene with Mizuki in it was always annoying but the rest wasn’t super dramatic nor was it usually the focus so that helped. This way the title got to be more about the various friendships with the characters and how they all help each other to succeed. An academy where you train to be a professional should be a place like that where you can count on others to have your back.

Overall, Voice Over is a series that I would certainly recommend. It’s a fairly unique premise and it’s always fun to see the inner workings of how the voices go. Changing up your voice and doing a lot of roles always seems like something that would be difficult to do. Naturally it’s best when people just like your default voice so you can keep using that but I want to say that most won’t be so lucky. You’ll need to be able to play many different roles. So if you’re up for a light hearted adventure then this is a fun one to check out. Where else will you get a fun comedy with the main character living two lives right?

Overall 7/10

Night Watch Review

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Night Watch makes for a pretty interesting watch after Gaslight. After all it seems to be going in a similar direction but is it really leading up to the same conclusion? Well, part of the fun is in watching it get there. It is certainly better than both of the Gaslight films but I still wouldn’t call it very good or anything. It certainly goes a bit far in the ending and it’s one of those films that doesn’t have a particularly likable cast. Some clever dialogue and moments do keep it from being a bad film though so ultimately it would be right in the middle. “Mid” you could say.

The movie starts off with Ellen and her husband John having an ordinary night but then Ellen makes the mistake of heading near the window during a dark and stormy night. She happens to see a murder in the window next door and quickly calls him over but by the time John gets there the body is gone. They call the cops who do a thorough inspection of the house but find nothing there. The cops think Ellen may have been imagining it. After all, it was dark out and the house is a fair distance to be watching in those conditions but Ellen does not drop her claim. Perhaps the next door neighbor Mr. Appleby knows something about it. He has been planting quite a lot lately……

So at its core this is a classic murder mystery only you aren’t sure if Ellen is correct here. She is in a fragile mental state due to some things that happened in her past. The movie goes into it but she had a breakdown at one point so this could be some kind of projection there. It doesn’t help that she keeps calling the cops over and over again to the point where they start to complain to John. None of the searches turn anything up so it’s not like they have much evidence anyway. The film is the embodiment of “The Boy Who Cried Wolf” when you think about it.

Inspector Walker is a fun character though. You have to give him credit for doing his due diligence because he does inspect the house multiple times. He certainly put in the effort even if it didn’t turn anything up. He even posted some guards to watch the place throughout the night. Even he has a breaking point with how often he has to go over to the same house. Perhaps arresting Ellen for a night for using up the police lines would have made some sense there. Not that you want to punish someone for reporting a crime but when it gets this excessive it has to be something that you consider right?

Now to Ellen’s defense, Mr. Appleby is certainly as suspicious as possible. I said that the cops never found anyone in the house but I should amend that to say that they found him there once. His excuse was that he was curious since Ellen kept claiming there was a murder. His other suspicious action was deciding to plant some new bushes/plants right after this supposed murder. Nothing wrong with gardening but the timing was certainly very interesting eh? He makes for a fun character. Someone who is rather defensive but who wouldn’t be when they’re a murder suspect.

John seems reasonable at first but gets gradually worse as the film goes on. He certainly acts like he’s making the right moves and defends Ellen in public but he is severely lacking in willpower. Lets just say that he makes all of the wrong choices which don’t bode well for him. You can say the same thing for Sarah who’s just not a very nice person. Since Ellen is surrounded by these characters who aren’t that great, it’s not particularly healthy for her recovery.

As for Ellen, well she is jumping at shadows after a point with how she keeps on calling the cops. At one point she apparently called over 10 times in one day which is really a whole lot. At that point since you know the police can’t do anything you’d think she would give it a rest. You aren’t likely to forget her as the lead though.

The climax gets surprisingly violent as mentioned earlier so you’ll want to watch out for that. The rest of the movie is really mild and laidback which is why this can come as a surprise. As for the twists at the end, well the film handles it really well. You definitely look back at the rest of the film in a different light and it all lands well. I would say I don’t think the plan will be as successful as the murderer expects though. This is something that only works for a short while, maybe a day at best. I think after that the cops will make a move and at that point someone’s going down. Now, whether they get the right person or not is really up to the viewer to decide.

I think they would pull it off though. Getting proof might be tougher but you have sufficient motive and things are very suspicious once they add it up. They may also get someone else who wasn’t in on the actual murder but knowing about it is almost as bad so game over there. It’s all head canon as the film ends early so you get to decide what happens next. It’s an open ending that works well enough. The film lives up to the suspenseful atmosphere it built up at the start.

Overall, Night Watch probably won’t play in quite the way that you expect and so in that way it really works as a solid mystery. It would be nice if we had more characters to really root for though. I liked the Inspector but he’s hardly the main character or even the main secondary one. I expect much like in a horror film they probably don’t want to make the characters too likable or you start to feel bad for everyone so it’s always a tight rope there. If you’re up for a suspenseful ride then this could be the ticket for you. It may have a bit of a slow build up near the middle but the film’s always doing enough to keep you interested for the ending.

Overall 5/10

The Last Wave Review

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The Last Wave is certainly a strange film. It doesn’t mind lingering on a shot of the sky or an empty house for a little while. There’s always a mysterious humming tune playing and so this helps to keep you off balance the whole time as you don’t know exactly how this is going to play out. It’s all just a little too dragged out though which hurts the film’s momentum.

The movie starts with a powerful hail storm striking a school and knocking one of the kids for a loop. We then see a bunch of guys at a bar and things get out of control when one guy gets drunk and then ultimately drowns. The group at the scene of the crime are taken in on the charge of murder. This leads us to our tax expert named David who is picked as their lawyer for some reason. Seems kind of random but David never turns down an assignment. He tries to make a connection with the main guy named Chris but he’s super vague. Chris also brings in his mentor Charlie who is also quite mysterious.

These two are from a tribe with supernatural customs including a bone that you could point at someone to make them die instantly. David’s best chance is if he can prove that they murdered the guy in this supernatural fashion and since that would be considered tribal law, the group could get off as being innocent. Unfortunately proving tribal law will be difficult especially since Chris and the others won’t play ball for some reason. Why are they keeping so many secrets and why is David starting to have a lot of visions? The whole thing feels rather strange so he is going to have to find answers for that.

From there we get a lot of scenes with David thinking or wondering what’s going on. Naturally the people around him either start to think that he’s crazy or making a mistake. His wife isn’t thrilled about this as Charlie even appears outside of the house in the dead of night and really spooks her. She didn’t exactly sign up for this but props to David for confronting Charlie the next day.

Unfortunately he doesn’t really get any answers out of him. Charlie just spams the “Who are you?” card over and over again. David has a partner who also thinks this is insane and that David should stop trying so hard. The case looks open and shut so there might not be anything he can do, especially when his own clients refuse to help out and seem to be on some kind of order of silence. More tribal law perhaps?

Throughout the film weird things are happening with the weather too. You have black rain falling from the sky which people claim to be pollution but it seems weirder than that. For example, it only starts falling in a small area as opposed to falling everywhere. It’s a bit hard to explain that. One thing that also helps David start to believe that are his visions where he starts seeing things that he shouldn’t even know about.

There’s a court scene in the movie which is fun as David tries to present supernatural evidence. The court actually considers it far more than you would typically expect. It definitely makes for a surreal scene as is the rest of the movie. While I’m skeptical that things would play out like this…at all. It still made for a fun moment as I always like to get a court scene thrown in.

While the movie is mainly focused on being super strange and doesn’t jump into the realm of action too much, the climax suddenly gets a little intense. We get a little wrestling as David turns into Indiana Jones and really investigates the cave. The whole thing turns into a bit of a conspiracy you could say as the tunnels go throughout the city. This leads into a pretty solid ending. You can take the ending in a few different ways but I consider it to be “Game Over”. There’s no coming back from this and in a way the futility of David’s whole adventure hits him all at once here. It’s like he never stood a chance.

The most annoying character in the film has to be Chris though. David’s trying to help him and the guy remains cryptic and completely unhelpful for the entirety of the film. You’d think that he would step up at least once, but no he never does. Even by the end he just ditches the main character because it got too dangerous. Then you have Charlie who seems completely insane. That could make for a good villain but he’s not good at using his abilities at all and just appears to be completely ineffective in the climax. Surely with his abilities he could do much better than how he performed here.

The Last Wave does a good job of being strange but where it loses me is in how long it’s got to be. We’ll have a conversation with David and Chris that takes eons as they have to have a dramatic pause at the end of each word and then just stare waiting for the other person to slowly have a response. These artificial delays occur for every conversation in the film involving Chris and the other characters. A random scene like the bathtub overflowing will take several minutes as David slowly walks up the steps and ponders his life as he turns it off.

So that does bring the whole eerie feel of the movie across but it also means that the pacing is simply dreadful. The events take too long to happen which hurts the replay value and even the experience of making it to the end. If you cut out how long some of these scenes were then this would easily jump up a point or two. Maybe if the payoff was even bigger then this would have gotten another point that way as well. There’s a lot to interest you here but it just takes too long to get there.

Overall, The Last Wave is a film that’s right in the middle. It’s far too drawn out to be good but there’s enough interesting angles here where it’s not bad. If you want a film that’s very original and off the normal path then this is the one to check out. It is difficult to make a film this strange without being nonsensical or making big mistakes so the film deserves some credit there. The ending is also very memorable so you aren’t likely to forget it anytime soon.

Overall 5/10

Damon Dran vs Marshall Law

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Suggested by iKnowledge Marshall Law is a talented hand to hand fighter and definitely surpasses Damon in that area. That being said, Damon’s near invincibility to conventional attacks is huge here. It’ll be difficult for Marshall to do a whole lot against him. Additionally, Damon’s strength is above the ordinary so he just needs some shots to get a win here. I think Law does not have enough stamina to outlast him and so he will go down here. Damon Dran wins.

Boa Hancock vs Yamato

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Suggested by DMG Boa Hancock is strong enough to have been one of the pirates acknowledged by the world government. She should not be underestimated but Yamato was able to stalemate a Yonkou for a significant amount of time. There are few fighters in the entire verse who could have pulled that off. For this reason I do not think that Boa would stand much of a chance here. Yamato is stronger and I dare say that she is faster as well. This does not leave Boa a whole lot of options and her stone ability won’t be doing anything here. Boa would need a significant powerup to stand a chance. Yamato wins.

Vacancy Review

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This review is of the edited TV-14 version of the film. All thoughts below should be addressed as such as a review of the unedited version would be more negative

It’s definitely a common trend that in a horror film you have to make it so that nobody is likable. This movie follows that formula to a T but of course that also ends up being a bit of a weakness when you think about it. If you threw in a bunch of really good characters here then ultimately that would only serve to enhance the movie right? Vacancy is an interesting idea and while the execution may not have quite fit the bill, it does stand out a bit from the average horror title.

The movie starts off with David and Amy on a long drive. Unfortunately they’re lost at this point. David doesn’t think that they are but Amy is convinced of it. Then their car seemingly gets damaged when they have to make a sharp turn to avoid a raccoon. David made the right choice in dodging it but Amy gets on his case about the whole thing. She is certainly shown to not be particularly compassionate here. She keeps on heckling David until they finally manage to stop at a motel. The only thing is, they’re now surrounded by a few crazy assailants and they’re in the middle of nowhere. Amy dropped her phone outside and they parked the car a few miles away from the motel. Can they possibly escape this predicament?

The first chunk here is really to set up how the characters are absolutely getting themselves into a bad situation and unfortunately a lot of that really falls squarely on Amy. She gives absolutely no supportive effort to all of this and just takes shot after shot despite being the one who was sleeping for a while. Deciding to cut an apple while in a moving car just seems reckless as well and naturally she gets cut. The film really goes out of its way to make her as annoying and unlikable as possible.

So by the time she drops her phone outside you almost end up blaming her for that completely whereas otherwise you might have cut her some slack. It’s definitely convenient not to have the phone. Granted, I like to think the villains have a jammer somewhere but otherwise the two main characters could have just run into the forest and it would have been a decent idea since they could call the cops and have them track the GPS. Otherwise going into the forest is too risky since they could be lost forever. Still preferable to this situation I have to imagine though.

David’s a much better character from the start as he has a decent attitude about this. He’s trying to stay calm and confident despite being extremely tired since he’s effectively been up all night. Additionally David is the first one to realize that something isn’t right with this Motel and figures out the danger before it’s too late. Things could have gone a lot worse otherwise. He’s usually the one thinking up the plans here and making a move. They make a break for it several times as well although it tends to fail.

Personally I think the best chance would still be to just bolt through the front doors. Perhaps they can catch you and perhaps not but either way it’s a better area to defend yourself with than being trapped in your motel room where they can show up at any time. The tapes in the room give the main characters some prep time on how to handle themselves. I wonder if the tapes were left there intentionally to scare the main characters or if they just forgot. I could easily believe either option tbh. still, the characters didn’t make awful decisions for the most part at least. The most iffy move was when they decided to split up so that David would go to the phone booth while Amy tried the window though. I didn’t think that was a plan that really had any kind of chance.

Also, you should never under any circumstances split up in this kind of adventure. If the villains were to fun to the house and lock the door then you’ve just left Amy trapped in with the villains. It could backfire really badly. The heroes definitely go through a lot here though. There’s even a tunnel underneath the house that has a ton of rats everywhere. Fortunately they don’t bite but it’s definitely something to imagine that the villains have to go through that every time. I guess they definitely don’t back down from those kind of dangers.

The main villain of the bunch if Mason and he’s certainly not great at being subtle. He was playing a tape with a lot of screaming initially and didn’t even hear the main characters enter. So he potentially almost lose 2 victims without even knowing about it. That doesn’t speak very well of him as a villain mastermind at all. By the end he’s your classic horror villain just yelling all over the place. I can’t say I was a fan or that he’s particularly memorable.

Vacancy has a solid ending to be sure but I thought it lost out on one potential jump scare. See, there’s one villain who I was expecting to have one last moment because the way he was hit didn’t seem all that serious to me. I was expecting him to appear as a “Gotcha!” moment but he never did so I have to assume that he was taken out. If so, I definitely did not see that coming but props to the heroes for doing a thorough job.

The movie isn’t quite as violent as your average horror title. The violence tends to be more implied or out of view like when the characters are watching the tapes. That’s always the better way of doing it than having this onscreen if you have to have that violence included in some way. The villains are all definitely mega psychos either way though and this is one motel that you definitely don’t want to have to enter. This may remind David to actually take a look when someone is messing with the car next time. Probably not too smart to let someone under the hood with no supervision right?

The most forced scene though is when a cop shows up. Yeah, I like that the cop quickly went on high alert and was ready for action but the way they take him out of the picture just makes no sense. Seriously he’s got a gun. The characters need to know that he’s their best chance so keep a close lookout. The cop also should have been paying attention since he knows that he’s deep in enemy territory. We get the obligatory “Villain teleports” kind of scene but I wasn’t buying it for a second. No way you are taken by surprise when you already know that the villains are packing weapons and are right around the bend. It’s just not going to happen.

If I were to question another move, it would be how Amy leaves her spot so quickly. If I were her at that point I would be staying up there for as long as I could without food and drink to buy time for a proper escape moment. It turned out well that she left sooner but she couldn’t have possibly known that so it just ended up being a fortunate coincidence for her that almost went south.

Overall, Vacancy effectively shows how spooky it can be to be trapped in a motel room with everyone out to get you. Also if you have super bad luck so this could all be possible. There are only 3 villains but the heroes have no way of knowing where they are at any point so they have to be careful when making a move. That said, the film goes a little too far in making the main heroine look mean and unlikable. I would say to make her better and downgrade David a bit if you want a balance (Don’t make them both awful) but you could have easily made her a little more reasonable and they still get stuck in the motel. That would have helped quite a bit because their dialogue doesn’t help matters. I wouldn’t particularly recommend this one. You can really guess all of the story beats as they come and the core story isn’t strong enough to get past that.

Overall 4/10