Douban scored 7.3. As a horror film, the score of the Thai horror film "Rental House" is not low. In the list of director Sofen Shadafis's own horror films, it is also higher than previous works such as "The Devil Will Show" (2008), "The House of the Grudge" (2011), and "The Promise" (2017).

The movie tells the story of a family of three renting out a villa in Bangkok and moving into an apartment by themselves to relieve financial pressure. Unexpectedly, they all fell into a trap carefully set by another family, and the results were tragic.

"Festival House Rental" poster

Setting up altars in rented houses, casting spells, and engaging in cult activities have always been important nourishment for urban legends, derived from the insecurity of the new society. You don't know who the neighbor is, and whether he will do dirty things (there is a neighbor who was murdered in the film). Living in the city, once you deal with house rental, you must be prepared for accidents. You might run into tenants with ulterior motives and landlords with secrets. The smiling intermediary can't believe it all, who knows what bad idea he has.

Since Ke Wen (played by Sucrava Kanano), Xiao Ning (played by Nitasha Girayujin) and their daughter moved out of their familiar land, the neighbor Aunt Peng chased him to say goodbye and asked Xiao Ning to come and pick him up next time. Starting from Qin Yerong, the individual leaves the shelter of the safe zone and enters the unknown that is calculated by others.

Stills of "Festival House Rental"

It is said that the material of the film comes from various real events. In tropical countries where religious activities are prevalent, the incidence of cults is indeed quite high. The main characteristics of cults: first, self-interest at the expense of others; second, power restriction, that is, the privilege of communicating with gods, which is only in the hands of a very small number of people. They use this to control believers and achieve the purpose of self-interest at the expense of others.

Folk horror films are often set up as the protagonist (group) breaking into the territory of a certain evil religion, like prey caught by a spider web, struggling violently in the enchantment.

"Rental House" takes a different approach, setting the two sides of the struggle as evenly matched, and placing them in the same lonely situation. In the city of Bangkok, where interpersonal relationships are alienated and community mutual assistance is almost non-existent. Xiaoning's family was caught and escaped entirely by themselves. The opponent is also another family fighting alone. This mode is easy to arouse the empathy of the audience.

This also allowed Xiao Ning to get rid of the stereotyped image of a heroine in a horror movie, and become more like a female police detective tracking a perverted killer. She's independent, brave, doesn't hesitate, doesn't believe, doesn't make the stupid mistakes that horror movies often make. The three-stage structure of "Festival House Rental" also makes it far more suspenseful than horror.

The first paragraph provides very little information, unfolding from Ning's perspective. She found her husband's whereabouts mysteriously; her old neighbor Aunt Peng told her that the mother and daughter who rented her villa cast spells in the early morning; her daughter Yingying seemed to be bewitched as well.

The second paragraph starts from the perspective of science and text, and adds some information to disenchant the mysterious event. The camp of good and evil and the purpose of witchcraft were clarified, and Xiao Ningduan's sense of terror was eliminated.

The third paragraph explains the last mystery, that is, the real purpose of the renting mother and daughter family, and the reason why Yingying was bewitched. The final piece of the puzzle is complete.

This standard method of suspense films is the main source of praise for "Rental House". It completes a cause-and-effect story that is logically coherent, well-motivated, and emotionally intense. It avoids the plot flaws that horror movies are often criticized, and the heroine does not make the audience hate iron and steel because of narcissism, selfishness, weakness or stupidity. Although the victim was a child, he was not molded into a little lamb with only the function of killing his life.

Stills of "Festival House Rental"

But precisely because all causes produce effects, all threads have continuations, doubts are satisfied, good and evil are rewarded, "Rental House" has lost the most important feature of horror films: horror.

The usual horror elements: stairs, rooftops, mirrors, zombie faces/hands, crows, insects and filthy spell scenes, puppet dolls that store souls, and white eyes covering pupils... are used with restraint. They are not intended to scare, but are only used to make the movie worthy of being called "horror". There are no haunting horror scenes in the whole movie, and the director's mind is not here. He didn't want to waste his imagination delving into the art of horror. The sense of horror he wanted to create through the atmosphere also lost its magic power because the mystery was revealed too early.

Horror films are the same as literary films, even if the story is incomplete and the fragments cannot be completed, they can still be excellent. Too perfect and it may damage it.

Stills of "Festival House Rental"

The gains and losses of "Festival House Rental" are all in "completeness".

Horror movies, the most important thing is to be scary. People are scared at the time of watching, and then they are scared afterward. Only then can they be regarded as good genre movies.

Asian folk horror films have gained a lot of popularity in recent years, and excellent works have appeared frequently. It is not easy to make a folk horror film well. In this type, whether it is a cult, a primitive religion, or a branch of an orthodox religion, there are always believers who cast spells with the purpose of harming others and benefiting themselves, endangering the spirit and life of others.

The hard part is that the motivation of the caster is easy to guess. Isn't it just to benefit oneself at the expense of others, it's hard to hide. If the motive cannot be hidden, there will be no suspense and no terror. For a show that directly shows the struggle between good and evil like "Rental House", the audience can quickly guess the clue. The rest is not terror, but fighting skills, how can it scare people.

Stills of "Festival House Rental"

Clever screenwriters have come up with various ways to hide the suspense until the end as much as possible, and not necessarily reveal everything. In "Double Eyes" (2002), "The Wailing" (2016), and "The Southern Witch" (2020), it is God who has good and evil. The audience is lost in the world of many gods, and has nowhere to know the intentions of the gods from all walks of life. The more lost, the more panicked.

Another way is to confuse the audience. Let the audience identify with the protagonist first, voluntarily find the truth with the protagonist, and get rid of the evil spirit, and then find out that the situation is not right. When did it go wrong? The heroine of "The Curse" (2022) has gradually developed evil thoughts, from a weak person who protects her daughter to a perpetrator who spreads malice. It can also be like "The Wicker Man" (1973) and "A Midsummer Night's Horror" (2019). The audience witnessed the strangeness of the lovely residents in the simple place, and it turned out that they wanted to offer outsiders as sacrifices to their gods.

In any case, the later the mystery is revealed, the better the viewing experience. Another point is that good folk horror films often do not take good and evil in the secular sense as the boundary. "Folk custom" is not simply equated with cult behavior that harms others and benefits oneself.

A belief that has existed for a long time in a piece of land, blesses the people on the land, makes them unite, take care of each other, maintain the former group life, and resist the impact of modern civilization. People who don't believe in ghosts and gods from outside are regarded as threats by them. Threats can also be put to good use, if necessary, as sacrifices to the gods.

Is there really good and evil? The Christian police officer who was burned to death as a sacrifice to God in The Wicker Man is a mutual concern for the persecution of "heretics" by Christianity in history. No one can be called righteous, and no one thinks that they are acting in accordance with God's commandments.

If cultists only want to make money, indulge in lust, prolong life or cultivate immortality, it will be very boring. Let different beliefs collide, people's hearts change, and God's will is unpredictable, making the audience feel as if they are staring into the abyss, and they will have an aftertaste. However, "House for Rent", which has a warm ending, fell into the trap of many Thai horror films, trying to use love to overcome misfortune, and turned into an emotional education film. It tastes like chewing gum to the end.