The Rental

The latest actor to take a stab at filmmaking, Dave Franco makes a strong directorial debut with The Rental, a low-budget thriller with grand ambitions.

The simple premise involves brothers Charlie (Dan Stevens) and Josh (Jeremy Allen White, Shameless) and their respective significant others Michelle (Alison Brie) and Mina (Sheila Vand, A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night) traveling to a luxurious seaside house for what’s supposed to be a relaxing weekend.

Once they’re assembled in the titular location, Franco and co-writer Joe Swanberg organically introduce a few tragic character flaws, crank up the tension — with help from creepy caretaker Taylor (Toby Huss, Sword of Trust) — and let the realistic scenario play out.

Further stirring the pot is a mysterious voyeur whose presence provides effective dramatic irony with the promise of his/her eventual involvement, while the discovery that the quartet is being digitally monitored by…someone…karmically brings their sins to light.

Thanks to strong writing and direction and a talented ensemble, all four performers feel like genuine friends and family, and Huss handles Taylor’s wildcard nature with unsettling ease. Franco directs it all with a surprisingly steady hand, capturing interior and exterior scenes with equal well-lit and purposefully-framed aplomb, though it’s his creative staging of familiar slasher moments that truly sets his film apart.

His appealing emphasis on cutting away right when violence is about to occur somehow makes The Rental more frightening than if it was an orgy of carnage, and when bloodshed is shown, it’s somewhat of a shock and emphasizes the real terror that the group is in.

Far greater than a mindless horror film, its terror is further buoyed by thought-provoking commentary on the unknowns and nefarious possibilities of short-term leases, as well as the daily surveillance we brush aside and/or are blissfully ignorant of.

So, yes. go ahead — book that weekend getaway, if you can somehow shake this smart, haunting film.

Grade: B-plus. Rated R. Available to rent via Amazon Video, Apple, and other streaming services

(Photo: IFC Films)