The Rental
IFC Films | Release Date (Streaming): July 24, 2020 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
62
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 30 Critic Reviews
Positive:
20
Mixed:
8
Negative:
2
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
88
Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperJul 22, 2020
This is a dark and brutal cautionary tale that traffics in any number of familiar scary-movie touchstones, but does so in consistently clever and entertaining fashion. Read full review
83
Entertainment WeeklyLeah GreenblattJul 21, 2020
A neat, nasty little thriller with a brutally effective final third. Read full review
83
ConsequenceMichael RoffmanJul 20, 2020
Franco exercises so much restraint, especially during the frenetic final act, that you’re always left on edge. There’s hardly a single gratuitous shot to the entire film. Read full review
80
IGNMatt FowlerJul 23, 2020
The Rental boats a strong cast, an intriguing set up, and a compelling mystery. It's a fun and feisty web of lies and deception with the added bonus of having a shadowy, stalking presence surrounding everything and everyone like a God-hand. It's a small film, but it's tense, dense, and delivers a harrowing final act. Read full review
80
Rolling StonePeter TraversJul 22, 2020
What elevates The Rental is the dynamite acting from the four leads. Read full review
80
The Hollywood ReporterJon FroschJul 20, 2020
It's a confident, enjoyably nasty piece of work, unnerving enough to cure your FOMO about that canceled summer vacation. Read full review
78
Austin ChronicleRichard WhittakerJul 20, 2020
Take out the masked menace, this is still tense: Add them in, and it's stomach-churning. Brutal, smart, wild and mean, The Rental savagely reinvents the summer camp slasher for the vacation rental generation, and delivers a punchline payoff that will leave you reeling. Read full review
75
New York PostJohnny OleksinskiJul 24, 2020
Taps into our worst fears of what could happen during a quiet holiday with heart-thumping realism. Read full review
75
RogerEbert.comBrian TallericoJul 24, 2020
There’s a claustrophobic cause-and-effect in The Rental that keeps it humming, and feels fresh. The minute that two characters make a crucial decision, you know it’s all downhill from there. Read full review
75
The Associated PressJocelyn NoveckJul 24, 2020
Franco has made a briskly entertaining debut feature, a nice way to spend an escapist summer evening. Not from your Airbnb, though. Read full review
75
Boston GlobeTy BurrJul 22, 2020
A solid entry in the real estate horror genre and an impressively taut feature directing debut for actor Dave Franco. Relying far more on psychology than bloodletting, the movie nevertheless exudes a growing sense of dread that’s difficult to shake. Read full review
75
The Film StageChristopher SchobertJul 20, 2020
A sturdy, small-scale thriller that makes little lasting impact but certainly succeeds in providing some clever jolts. Read full review
73
TheWrapSteve PondJul 22, 2020
The Rental tries to do a lot of things and succeeds partway in most of them. But as a relationship drama it gets sidetracked and as a horror film it doesn’t go full gonzo, except perhaps in the emotional sense. Read full review
70
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzJul 24, 2020
It’s a scarily efficient little horror movie, directed by Dave Franco in his feature debut, who proves knowledgeable about his subject. Really knowledgeable, evidently, because he and co-writer Joe Swanberg dip into just about every trope of the genre by the end of the 88-minute running time. Read full review
70
SlashfilmChris EvangelistaJul 20, 2020
As far as directorial debuts go, The Rental is a strong start for Franco, who proves here he can take not just one but two different tried-and-true genre formulas and rework them into something neat. Read full review
70
VarietyOwen GleibermanJul 20, 2020
There’s some crafty artistry at work in The Rental, and also some fairly standard pandering, which feels like a violation of the movie’s better instincts. That said, most of it is skillful and engrossing enough to establish Franco as a director to watch. Read full review
68
Paste MagazineAndrew CrumpJul 22, 2020
The Rental has De Palma vibes with Fincher’s cool, but lacks the former’s exploitative pleasures and the latter’s cinematic expertise. It is, however, satisfyingly composed in terms of approach, giving the audience flashes of brutality to come or shooting it from a distance, heightening the shock and lending bloodshed sharp flinching power. Read full review
67
IndieWireDavid EhrlichJul 21, 2020
Even in spite of its obvious nowness, this thing is such a lean, mean, and utterly merciless old school programmer that it might seem anachronistic if not for the fact that it’s being released onto many of the same drive-in screens that would have shown it 35 years ago. Read full review
63
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsJul 23, 2020
It starts out good and turns out dumb, ditching a promising, nicely suggestive first half for second-half payoffs (revealed in the trailer) taking director Dave Franco’s feature directorial debut into lame and lamer slasher-film territory. Read full review
63
Slant MagazineChuck BowenJul 20, 2020
Dave Franco has a mighty command of silence as a measurement of emotional aftershock. Read full review
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