Actor-turned-director Dave Franco and mumblecore trailblazer Joe Swanberg have given us a horror movie that builds its suspense slowly, delving deeply into the psychological dynamics between its four main characters, in the tightly-knit 88-minute indie “The Rental.”
The premise isn’t complicated, two couples rent an AirBNB for a weekend in the Oregon country. Michelle (Alison Brie) is married to Charlie (Dan Stevens), the alpha male of the group, who has the hots for startup co-worker Mina (Sheila Vand), who’s dating Charlie’s deadbeat part-time Lyft driver brother Josh (Jeremy Allen White).
Michelle and Josh are oblivious to Charlie-Mina’s affair “They have their creativity going on,” Michelle gullibly tells Josh, but things get slightly complicated when Charlie and Mina find hidden cameras in the airbnb shower they hooked up in during the wee wee hours of the evening. They decide not to call the cops or confront the house caretaker Taylor (a creepily playful Toby Huss), the brother of the unseen property owner, because if they did it might mean their cheating would get exposed.
Kudos to DP Christian Sprenger for the taut camerawork, which uses darkly slick lenses to set up a mood of dreadful deceit through the film. It also helps that the subtly chiming score from Danny Bensi and Saunder Jurriaans manages to turn the screws on at ust the right times.
The acting from the four leads is also exemplary. Brie, best known for her work in “Mad Men,” and “G.L.O.W,” plays the most humane and decent of the four, Stevens is excellent at playing her hunky douchebag boyfriend, meanwhile, Vand finds the self-consciousness that propels her character’s wily nature and White, best known as “Lip” in “Shameless,” brings a slacker attitude, filled with insecurities to his character, a low-rent schlub with a dangerous temper to boot.
The characters in “The Rental” just want a weekend of sex, drugs, and hiking, what they get instead, much like us, are primal shocks, stumbling into a world where familiar horror movie cliches are restrained in favor of hard-edged minimalism. Franco refuses to show us a single gratuitous shot in this film, he’s more interested in the web of lies and deceit his characters build amongst themselves, even more so than the shadowy and stalking presence that lurks in and around the house.
And so, there is more psychology in “The Rental” than actual blood, and all the better for it. Sure, Franco isn’t necessarily tackling new cinematic territory here, especially when his screenplay finally heads into slasher territory, but the filmmaking is so slick, the acting so good, that barely any fat sneaks into the narrative. Franco’s ambitions might not be grandiose, but his ability to trust the viewer in taking his time and not revealing his cards too quickly makes for a directorial debut filled with curious potential. I can’t wait to see what he does next. [B]
The sequel will arrive more than 20 years after the original and nearly two decades after “National Treasure: Book of Secrets,” with Turteltaub returning to direct.