The Rental

Delivering solid thrills and an ugly portrait of disintegrating relationships, The Rental is a clever meld of drama and horror.

Billed as an indie slasher, it works even better as a wickedly unsympathetic chamber piece.

It's pretty basic boilerplate, scary-movie stuff, with tropes and tricks that have already been extensively satirised elsewhere.

The Rental has a familiar plot with familiar story beats, but it is so well-paced and deliberate, and its cast so good, that even though you know where it's going, it's still immensely satisfying to take the journey.

Confidently weaves real world anxieties with all the twisted, sinister possibilities the horror genre affords.

Stranded-in-a-cabin tropes tend to be a lot of fun. So it's easy to get on board with the premise of The Rental, especially given the front-loaded tension between its two couples.

If Dave Franco is indeed determined to keep directing—and if each picture manages to be slightly better than the last—then by his fifth or sixth film he’ll surely churn out something noteworthy...

Restrained and patient, The Rental has glimmers of potential without ever becoming the memorable, intelligent horror it seems to want to be.

Dave Franco’s directorial debut is strong and offers a promising future. As an actor himself, he is able to direct in a way that elevates the performances as very naturalistic.

If “success” means getting the viewers interested in a sequel, then mission accomplished. However, sacrificing the first movie of a possible saga to just introduce its main horror element doesn’t quite work as Dave Franco might have thought.