The Rental (2020)

Dave Franco's feature length directorial debut is a horror movie, and it came out in 2020. Yeah, movies are actually coming out this year, can you believe that? This one is about two couples taking a weekend in a rental house, and you know something bad is going to happen.

Charlie (Dan Stevens) and his girlfriend Michelle (Allison Brie) are one part of the equation, and Charlie's brother Josh (Jeremy Allen White, Lip from Shameless) and his girlfriend/Charlie's business partner Mina (Sheila Vand) are the other half. The man who rents the home to them is Taylor (Toby Huss from Halloween 2018) and they're iffy about him from the start. Things go smoothly for the first night, but a somewhat foreshadowed twist occurs, and it only gets worse from there. That's as much as I'll say about this, because to say anymore would spoil everything, and you really ought to see how this one plays out.

This was a pretty solid debut with decent tension and loads of foggy atmosphere. Our leads do a great job and play solid characters and once the horror kicks in, it doesn't go easy on our protagonists, even if it's short-lived.

I do feel that the movie leaves me a bit unfulfilled at the end, seeming rather inconclusive, but for what it is, I thought it was a good effort.

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