Rent Are You There? (2012)

Spoilers follow ... - Are You There? review by NP

This will not be for everyone. Shot entirely on Kodak Super 8mm negative film stock, it is clearly a very low budget venture featuring no big names, no real special effects, and the goriest moment (by far) is when the character Aidan guts and fillets a fish he has caught.

The mention of ‘five friends’ in a production can often mean teens of indiscernible age, horny, stoned; a series of walking clichés: a stupid one, a sexy one, a cool one and so on – and you wouldn’t be given much of a chance to like or care for the fate of these people. With Aidan, Tess, Mel, Dean and Nick, you can forget all that. They are all played very naturalistically (ie: no endless posturing) and as an audience member, I would actually be happy to spend time in their company. This is such a simple, seemingly obvious ‘thing’ to get right in any fiction, it is incredible that the vast majority seem deliberately to get it so wrong. If you like the characters, you care when things happen to them.

The problem for some is that not a lot does happen to them. But that’s fine: not every haunting has to come with cacophony of familiar blank eyed ghost children and spooky voices. What does happen to them, happens very slowly. But that’s okay: not every possession has to occur at such high-octane high speed that the perceived attention-span of the audience has not to be allowed breathing space.

I really enjoyed this. Director/Writer Scott di Lalla uses the elements he has at his disposal to very good effect – a small, talented cast and a photogenic house in an interesting location. ‘I am Zozo’, or it’s other (very common) title ‘Are you There?’ won’t change your life, but for a slow-burning, unspectacular chiller, it is recommended.