SPOILER ALERT: the following article contains massive spoilers, including the ending. If you have not yet seen the movie, proceed at your own risk, or better, come back to this article later!
‘Rent-A-Pal’ is a psychological horror drama that follows the story of a lonely man named David who falls further into the depths of his isolation and starts losing his mind. A mysterious tape is found to be the cause of the unraveling of his life and the movie creates a very ambiguous air around what is actually happening. Things get weirder by the minute, but the filmmakers have also left breadcrumbs for us to follow and deduce the nature of David’s situation. SPOILERS AHEAD
Rent-A-Pal Plot Summary
David Brower is a middle-aged bachelor looking for a romantic partner while also caring for his irritable dementia-ridden mother Lucille. His father, Frank, an accomplished jazz-musician, committed suicide ten years prior. He has been utilizing Video Rendezvous, a video dating service, for six months to no avail. After going to one of their locations to record an updated tape, David stumbles across another tape in their bargain bin titled “Rent-A-Pal,” which he purchases after it intrigues him. Watching the tape, he finds that Rent-A-Pal features its host, Andy, who talks to the viewer and leaves in pauses to allow the viewer to simulate a conversation, though is quickly disillusioned and shuts it off.
The next morning, David is contacted by Video Rendezvous, who says that a woman, Lisa, wanted to match with him after watching his latest tape. When he goes to retrieve her tape, the receptionist informs him that she has already found another match, and when he watches her tape, he learns that she likes jazz and is a professional caregiver, depressing him further. He decides to continue watching Rent-A-Pal, where David confides in Andy that Lucille, like Andy’s mother, were both physically abusive. David also shares about his failures to find a partner, and when Andy shares a story about a girl who lied to avoid going to a dance with him in high school, he convinces David to make him his friend.
David continuously watches the tape, virtually talking, drinking, and playing cards with Andy. During one viewing, Andy presses David for an embarrassing story, in which David talks about how bullies in middle school left sexually explicit and threatening notes in David’s name in the locker of a girl he liked which resulted in his suspension, the ordeal giving David trust issues. Andy begins to share an embarrassing story of his own from his college days, which begins to get increasingly more detailed and sexually charged as he goes on, prompting David to begin masturbating to it. Lucille catches David in the act but mistakes him for her late husband. As she gets more belligerent, David, in his anger, tells her that her husband is dead. After this causes her to break down, he recants and says that Frank is still alive and well to calm her down.
One day, David receives another call from Video Rendezvous, who informs him that Lisa’s previous match didn’t work out and that she’s once again interested in him. The two go on a date at a skating rink/arcade, where the two talk and connect about their experience in caregiving. The date goes successfully, and Lisa gives David her number and sets up another date for the following evening. David tells Andy about it, but Andy is strangely angered by this, accusing David of casting him aside and forgetting about a previously planned time to play cards, causing David to cancel his date the following morning, using his mom as an excuse.
David spends the evening interacting with Andy, and when he goes upstairs for a drink, he discovers that Lucille has wandered out of the home. Frantic and unable to find her, David calls Lisa for help, and with her assistance, he locates her and returns her home. David takes the opportunity to show her his room and share his father’s music with her. They begin to get intimate on the couch, during which David sits on the remote and turns Rent-A-Pal on. As Andy seems to judgingly watch David make out with Lisa, David prematurely ejaculates and Andy laughs, alerting Lisa. When Lisa questions David about the tape, he gets angry and defensive, prompting her to leave.
The next morning, as David cleans the house, he finds a picture in his mother’s room featuring him and a man who looks like Andy. He then finds his Rent-A-Pal tape missing, only to discover Lucille cutting the tape’s film in the kitchen, mistaking it for Scotch tape. Furious, David strikes Lucille across the face with the tape before going to Video Rendezvous and aggressively acquires another Rent-A-Pal tape. After rewatching it, he takes Lucille, still left on the kitchen floor, to the top of the basement stairwell. After she addresses him as David, he coldly whispers to her that she’s the reason that Frank killed himself before pushing her down, grievously injuring her. Soon, all the TVs in the house begin to play Rent-A-Pal as Andy expresses his excitement to be David’s friend.
Rent-A-Pal Ending
Lisa arrives at David’s house, wanting to make amends for the previous night and bring over dinner, but she discovers Lucille’s body. David confronts her, speaking like Andy as he attempts to keep her from calling the police before trying to murder her. Lisa manages to free herself and stabs David in the chest with a pair of scissors before fleeing and shouting for help. David drags himself into the basement and fast-forwards the Rent-A-Pal tape to the end in which Andy forlornly says goodbye to the viewer before he bleeds out.
Source: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 3.0).