Agony and the
DAVE FRANCO’S FILM UNLEASHES THE FULL HORROR OF HOLIDAY RENTING HIGHS AND LOWS
Holiday-makers might think twice about their accommodation choices after watching Dave Franco’s directorial debut, The Rental.
The US actor, best known for comedy roles in films including 21 Jump Street, Bad Neighbours (and their sequels) and the acclaimed The Disaster Artist, went in an unexpected direction for his first full-length feature behind the camera, writing, producing and directing a horror-thriller scenario about two couples who rent an idyllic beachside house for a weekend away, only to discover sinister forces at play.
Franco, who describes himself as “a very paranoid person in general” was stuck by the oddness of the rising popularity of house share services such as Airbnb, and thought it would make rich material, particularly in a fractious time for his homeland.
“I just thought about how, especially in the United States, our country is as divided as it’s ever been and no one trusts each other — and yet we trust staying in the home of a stranger simply because of a few five-star reviews online,” he says via Zoom call from his LA home where he has been locked down with wife Alison Brie and their new kittens.
“I’m just as guilty as anyone — I stayed in an Airbnb while filming this movie and I was trying to explore that disconnect where we are all aware of the risks of staying in a stranger’s home, but we still do it because we never think anything bad will actually happen to us.”
Franco has been directing short films for years alongside his burgeoning acting career, and says it was a big step up to making a feature. He chose the horror genre not just because he was a fan of the creeping sense of dread tackled by filmmakers including Ari Aster (Hereditary, Midsommar) and Aussie Jennifer Kent (The Babadook, The Nightingale) but he thought it would also allow him to take more risks. And setting almost the entire film in one house made sense logistically and economically.
“It was primarily one location so we could shoot it for relatively cheap and with the horror genre you tend to deal with such extreme scenarios and emotions, that as a director you can almost really have fun with the overall style and take big swings because there is already so much craziness happening inherent to the story,” he says. “So that gave me the freedom to do these things that would hopefully make the movie feel unique to me.”
It also helped that Glow star Brie was along for the ride both as one of his lead actors and his greatest supporter.
“She just made my job so easy in many ways where she is so talented, so that was really easy on set where she would nail it the first take every time and then at the end of the day she was just there as a support system,” he says. “As a first time director there were moments where I would just get in my head and start to doubt myself in small ways and she was always there to build me up in the right ways and remind me we were doing good work.”
Franco and Brie met in 2012 at Mardi Gras in New Orleans, while both were high on ecstasy and he is as astonished as anyone they are still together nearly a decade later. He says there was no awkwardness directing his
wife, having already acted together and realising they made a good team on set.
“We are the only couple who has ever lasted under those circumstances,” he says with a laugh of their first meeting.
As a homage to their unusual introduction, Franco wrote in a scene where Brie’s character is under the influence of the same drug, inspiring the two to take a proverbial trip down memory lane in the name of authenticity. “Weirdly enough, that’s actually the most personal thing that’s in the movie,” he says.
“Right before we started filming, the two of us went on a