This “Super Creepy” Home Invasion Shocker is Now Streaming
Alison Brie and Dave Franco have quietly led one of the year’s best horror movies. Together is the real stuff, as potent socially as it is effective in pure horror terms. This is nasty body horror at its best, and none of it would work quite as well were it not for the chemistry shared between the real-life couple. In our review out of this year’s Sundance Film Festival, we even wrote that Together is “grisly, propulsive, and gleefully buoyed by its vicious conflation of domestic angst and body horror.”
Yet, while both have dabbled in the horror genre before—remember Brie in Scream 4—you might not know that Together isn’t the first time the couple have collaborated on a horror movie. Back in 2020, just as the pandemic really started to rear its ugly head, Dave Franco helmed one of the decade’s best horror movies. Alison Brie starred in a quiet yet terrifying home invasion thriller about vacation rentals (and relationship strife) run amok. Now, you can catch this early collaboration streaming on Shudder.
Learn more about The Rental below:
Per Shudder: Two couples on a weekend getaway grow suspicious that their rental host has sadistic intentions in this unnerving debut thriller from Dave Franco. Alison Brie and Dan Stevens star.
In a retrospective on the state of horror back in 2020, I wrote, “Dave Franco delivered stripped-down home invasion thrills with The Rental… Horror was there to entertain, terrify, and assuage anxieties. Exposure to fictional indie horrors made the horrors of the real world all the more bearable.”
Franco’s mumblecore take on The Strangers continues to wow me every time I introduce the film to someone new. There’s something so sinister and matter-of-fact about how terrifying and sudden the final act comes together.
Our own Tyler Doupé even revisited The Rental as part of his The Overlooked Motel series in 2024. At the time, he wrote, “On the whole, The Rental is unpredictable, gritty, and features a strong cast and an impressive turn from Dave Franco in his feature film directorial debut.” Users on Shudder have similarly called The Rental “Fantastically well written, and beautifully acted,” “extremely compelling,” and “super creepy.” It’s a slow burn, for sure, but there’s a rawness that’s too often missing from glossier horror movies.
What do you think? Any plans to check out The Rental on Shudder? If you do, be sure to check in with me on Twitter @Chadiscollins where I’m always down to chat indie horror, Dave Franco’s Together mullet, and more.
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