The Rental

Four characters go to a rented house for the weekend, but none of them know that they will have to deal with some nasty secrets. And one crazy guy. Dave Franco is behind the camera for the first time, and it's quite interesting. Or it could be. There's an obvious attempt to play a bit with genres and audience expectations in The Rental, it's just that Franco may have had more ambition than ability and his debut never takes off the way it should. But there are a few interesting ideas. I'm not saying he'll be a good director, but I'll definitely give him another chance. (02/08/2020)

With a dream rental house on the California coast, this movie entertains by arousing curiosity about what kind of shit is going to go down, how and in what quantity. It is a well-thought-out thriller psychologically built on the relationships between the characters. You anticipate and wish for the horror outcome, and you will not be disappointed. Only its explanatory epilogue could have been more imaginative. In contrast to the screenwriting skill that preceded it, it comes across as a bit banal. (05/01/2021)

The idea is good and I can’t complain much about the pace of the second half, but a film that wants to rely on how characters behave in an unpredictable and confusing situation should never allow those characters to be so unlikeable and dumb (at the beginning the tenant has to behave weirdly so everything will hold together). The horror is satisfactory and the direction isn’t bad, but I didn’t care at all for the fragile relationships. This needs to be worked out better. 60% (18/11/2020)

Dave Franco tries his hand at directing for the first time and it's not bad for a debut, but unfortunately his film falls into the "watchable but unremarkable" category. Two brothers and their girlfriends book a nice cottage for the weekend, but instead of relaxing, they are faced with nerves and a fight for their lives. There are more familiar actors like Dan Stevens and Alison Brie, and a good cameo, but I can't find more positives. Getting to know the characters takes an unexpectedly long time and the killer shows up somewhere around 20 minutes before the end, which could still be forgiven if the murders were worth it, but the killer solves everything smacking heads with a hammer and I don't know who can be satisfied with that these days. At least the finale is quite suspenseful and the killer has a nice mask, but unfortunately that's not enough for me. Too bad, hopefully we'll see something more substantial before the end of the year. Story***, Action>No, Humor>No, Violence**, Entertainment***, Music***, Visual***, Atmosphere***, Suspense***. 6/10. (24/07/2020)