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The Long, Long Trailer Review

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This is a film where the title is definitely very accurate. The whole movie involves the long trailer from start to finish and the journey along with it. That said, I thought it was a bit weaker than I was expecting it to be. The movie just drags on a bit and while it’s still a fun adventure, there is less variety than in the average comedy type movie like this. At its core that’s what the issue with the movie is. It needed more unique moments.

So the movie starts off with Nicky in the rain looking for his wife in a trailer. The whole thing looks rather odd so an older man tells Nicky to wait in his little house since it’s impossible to pass by it without being seen. Nicky then decides to share his story and almost the rest of the film is a flashback. He and Tacy had a reasonably solid marriage and things were going well but she desperately wanted to move into a trailer. Nicky was completely against the idea and I can’t say that I blame him because this does not sound like a good move. They shop around but ultimately end up going for a really small one that still breaks the bank. The trailer has a lot of things wrong with it and may even destroy their marriage. Can they overcome this vehicle?

Now it’s nice that Nicky ends up relenting so Tacy can get her trailer but he was really right and should have stuck his ground here. A trailer is a ton of work since you need to drive it around, find a place to park it, find utilities, etc. It’s not like you just have running water and a nearby town to get supplies from. It seems to me like you usually only live in a trailer as a last resort but not because you really want to be there. This is probably the first time I’ve seen a character actually want to make the change.

It makes even less sense when you consider how good the house that they were living in was. It wasn’t some run down little apartment or anything like that, it was actually a pretty solid place to live. Deciding to leave there was a big mistake. Well, they end up getting the trailer and they do their best with it, but it just doesn’t work. The whole thing shakes, you can get stuck in the mud, etc. I have to say that living in a trailer seems like even harder work than I would have guessed. There are just so many things that you have to take into account in everyday life with this.

One scene I did appreciate is how close the community apparently is. Everyone jumps up to help when Tacy isn’t feeling very well and apparently they have whole communities for the people with trailers. It’s nice to see that they’ve got some kind of support network going and honestly they probably should have just stuck with this group. I know the main two wanted some privacy so they went out again but maybe they should have just stayed long enough to at least pick up some tips and tricks.

Ultimately I have to mainly give a lot of grief to Tacy in the end though. So the heroes end up having to cross a huge mountain to get to their destination and this will be extremely dangerous. To help their odds of survival increase, Nicky lets Tacy know to toss out her random rocks that show every place they’ve been. Tacy agrees but secretly keeps them which almost results in their death. If you’re going to keep the rocks then keep them but lying about this nearly ended up being fatal for both of them. It’s easy to see how there was a lot of friction here as a result.

Now this is one of those crazy comedies where both characters will have their unreasonable moments but I think it’s fair to say that for most of the adventure, Tacy was not handling this very well. She really wanted the trailer but wasn’t going to be able to make it work. Not to say you can blame everything on her since she couldn’t have known what was going to happen. She just ended up putting them in this dilemma.

As for Nicky, well he tends to get overly emotional at times. It comes with the territory of trying to roll with these crazy schemes but he does nothing to help the tension between him and Tacy. Throwing out the rocks and running off just serve to amp things up even more. All in all I still liked the banter between the main two and the humor is what carries the film. It may not make both characters all that likable individually but the strong dialogue will ensure that they are both memorable.

Where the film falters as I mentioned is that it just feels like not much happened. Just look at the plot description that I used, it pretty much encompasses the entire film and that’s not very long. It’s all about the characters riding around in their trailer without ever making any real progress here. I suppose the drive up to the mountain was decent but in a way I just wanted some scenes outside of the trailer. So in a sense the premise itself limited the film. There just wasn’t a lot going on and it shows that there are only so many jokes you can do with a trailer.

Overall, The Long, Long Trailer is a good movie but not a very good one. There’s not a whole lot of replay value here and while the movie doesn’t drag on or anything like that, it won’t keep your interest quite as much as it should. There’s enough world building and potential here for sequels that have a completely different plot though. If you want to watch a retro comedy film then this isn’t a bad watch. As a one and done it’ll do the job even if you think it could have been better. The moral here is that the grass is always greener and sometimes you gotta be satisfied with what you have.

Overall 6/10

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