Home for Rent review.
Thailand delivers a twisted tale of spirits, grief and surprising depth with Home for Rent. Streaming now on Netflix.
New movie reviews will not contain spoilers.
Home for Rent
Directed by Sophon Sakdaphisit
Written by Tanida Hantaweewatana and Sophon Sakdaphisit
Starring Nittha Jirayungyurn, Sukollawat Kanarot, Thanyaphat Mayuraleela, Suphithak Chatsuriyawong and Penpak Sirikul
Home for Rent Review
At the risk of sounding like a Stefon bit from Saturday Night Live’s past…this movie has everything. Creepy dolls, background horror, mirror horror, possession, cults…Dan Cortese. Okay…one of those isn’t true. But Thailand’s Home for Rent has all the rest…and plenty more. It pulls out every horror trick in the book. Then it jumps back in time to recontextualize everything we’ve been watching. The storytelling trick proves to be its most interesting aspect. It’s also something that it does more than once.
Ning (Nittha Jirayungyurn) begrudgingly rents her family’s home after the apartment she had been renting out is trashed by a tenant. The house belongs to her husband Kwin (Sukollawat Kanarot) who hates the idea despite the money it will bring in. When he changes his mind seemingly out of nowhere…the couple and young daughter Ing (Thanyaphat Mayuraleela) move into the apartment. It doesn’t take long for Ning to discover that her new tenants aren’t what they appear to be.
House for Rent has a good deal of Invasion of the Body Snatchers to it. Ning finds herself alone in her belief that Mrs. Ratree (Penpak Sirikul) is up to some black magic cultish activities in her old home. Kwin is acting strangely…even sporting a new tattoo that Ning begins to see all over. A neighbor tries to warn Ning about what’s happening in the house…but she goes missing soon after. Ning is forced to launch an investigation into her new tenant while malevolent forces conspire around her.
If that was all that Home for Rent had going for it…it would still be a good movie. There are some decent scares to be had while Ning’s world falls apart. Something strange in the background. Good old fashioned mirror tricks. Kwin’s increasingly strange behavior. A creepy doll. A murder of crows. Cultish chanting. All the pieces are in place for a decent little horror story. It has a lot more up its sleeve.
Just as Ning begins to piece things together…her investigation appears to come to a violent end. That’s when Home for Rent jumps back in time eleven years. We learn Kwin’s tragic story and follow him up to (and through) the events we’ve witnessed in the move to that point. Everything that we know is recontextualized with the information the movie gives us. It’s not that everything Ning has learned is wrong…that would be a cheat (and a waste of time). Instead, Home for Rent layers an unexpected emotional depth onto what’s going on.
When the retelling of the story from Kwin’s perspective catches up to the first pass at the story…the movie jumps back again. This time we see things from Ratree’s perspective. We only travel back four months…but, once again, everything we knew adds another dimension. Home for Rent answers all the questions you’ll have…and even some you didn’t realize were questions. What happened to the neighbor? Why did Kwin change his mind? What is Ratree up to? Those are expected reveals. Home for Rent, once again, has a lot more up its sleeve. The movie’s narrative format yields one of the more interesting and multi-dimensional stories we’ve seen in some time.
What begins as one woman’s quest to discover who is renting her home turns into a sprawling, surprisingly emotional, journey for multiple characters. And the moment everyone collides for the climax…Home for Rent jumps back once again. Mere moments…to change our understanding one last time. In a lesser script the trick might have grown tiresome. It works to great effect here. The story gets stranger and at the same time it becomes more understandable. The more information the movie gives us…the better it becomes. Best of all, it doesn’t reveal its biggest secret with a simple conversation or discovery made by Ning. It shows it to us…makes us live it.
An excellent cast brings everyone’s perspective to life. Jirayungyurn dominates the first half of the picture as a desperate mother afraid of what she’ll discover. Kanarot takes center stage after the jump back…turning his strange character into something moving and understandable. Sirikul gets her time to shine in the lead up to the finale…revealing her true nature as the story heads deep into the supernatural.
When a movie has a bit of everything it’s easy to say that there’s something here for everyone. The truth is that if the movie can’t bring everything together in harmony…there’s nothing there for anyone. Home for Rent brings things together in a satisfying way that is at turns horrifying and heartbreaking. It has the most important thing to offer anyone. A great movie.
Scare Value
Home for Rent uses a unique narrative format to deliver a fully realized story. It has secrets worth experiencing and pieces together a story you won’t soon shake. Great performances bring the script to life from multiple perspectives. A home worth more than just a rent. Streaming now on Netflix.
4/5
Home for Rent Link
Streaming on Netflix
