Dave Franco Made His Directorial Debut With This Solidly Entertaining Horror Movie

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For a horror movie to have a truly impressive ending, it has to wrap enough parts of the story up while making people think hard about what they just watched. If a movie can stay with audiences for a while after, that's usually a good sign, and sometimes a conclusion that could mean two different things feels perfect.

Dave Franco's directional debut, The Rental, was released in 2020. With a screenplay by Franco and Joe Swanberg, the movie is reminiscent of Drinking Buddies, the film starring Anna Kendrick and Jake Johnson that has its characters talking in a realistic, casual way that doesn't even feel like a typical movie. While The Rental is a solid scary story about friends going away for the weekend, it's the ending that makes this story special. The movie is definitely worth checking out for that reason.

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From the beginning of The Rental, it's unclear how the movie will end. Michelle (Alison Brie) and Charlie (Dan Stevens) are heading to a rental property with Charlie's brother Josh (Jeremy Allen White) and his girlfriend Mina (Sheila Vand). Everyone seems to get along okay, although there's some tension for sure, especially as the movie shares more of what these relationships are actually like. Remove the horror element and the movie would play like a romantic comedy or drama, as Mina and Charlie have sex while the others are asleep the first night in the house. This creates a lot of tension and sets up an interesting rest of the movie. But of course, this is definitely a horror movie, and the characters realize that there's a camera in the shower and that something is spying on them. This reveal has all the shock value that it is meant to.

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