Film Reviews by Amy Diaz
Two couples on a weekend away have extremely bad luck with their beach house in The Rental, a horror movie that will make you scared of Airbnb-like vacation house rentals and, even more so, two-couple vacations.
Charlie (Dan Stevens) and Mina (Sheila Vand) are partners in some kind of business venture, I don’t recall if they say what, except that they both seem kinda terrible so I’m sure their company does something awful, like “disrupting the ice cream experience” or something. Mina is dating Charlie’s brother, Josh (Jeremy Allen White), an Uber-type driver, who has some insecurities about his financial situation. Charlie is married to Michelle, who pretends like she’s cool with how close Charlie and Mina are.
For reasons unknown, Charlie and Mina think it would be a great idea for all four of them to go to a fancy beach house for the weekend. It’s a few hours’ drive to get there and by the time they arrive the property manager, Taylor (Toby Huss), is peeved that they’re late. Mina pre-hates Taylor because she’s pretty sure he’s racist, as he had turned down her request for the house (because, she thinks, of her Middle Eastern last name) but then approved Charlie’s. Perhaps that’s why she kicks off their acquaintance by making a snarky-sounding, classist remark. Later, Taylor makes a joke about Michelle being a peeping Tom (why else, he says, would someone own a telescope in the city) and Mina is miffed that he can just waltz into the house whenever to bring the telescope he offers to lend them.
Fun weekend!
The awkwardness continues as everyone but Michelle, who says she needs sleep for all the fun she seems to think they’re going to have, takes ecstasy and Charlie and Mina end up alone and high in the hot tub. What could go wrong?
The next day, Charlie bails on Michelle’s hiking excursion that she’s so excited about and Mina forgets to take care of Josh’s dog (which they technically weren’t supposed to bring to this pet-free house anyway) and, while we get the occasional creeper POV shot, I was starting to wonder, watching this foursome who all seemed to land somewhere on the “ugh, this guy” scale, if the big reveal would be that nobody was menacing them and that their own guilt and suspicion and insecurity would actually drive them mad. Horror is other people! Of course, I’m mentioning it, so it’s not the big reveal and that was kind of a disappointment.
The movie is really at its best in the first 40 minutes or so, before it nails down what’s actually happening. The “what’s actually happening” felt like a letdown, with diminishing returns right up to the very rushed end. The movie did a decent job of setting up entertainingly unlikeable characters. Had the plot been built on these people and their flaws I feel like that would have been more interesting than just having a story randomly happen to them. In its first half, The Rental had some fun with its clueless rich people and maybe the movie reached B- levels of entertainment. But the off-the-shelf horror it turned into was solidly C- at most. So C?
Rated R for violence, language throughout, drug use and some sexuality by the MPA, according to filmratings.com. Directed by Dave Franco with a screenplay by Dave Franco and Joe Swanberg, The Rental is an hour and 28 minutes long and distributed by IFC Films. It is available for rent.