Rent Bait (2015)

Spoilers follow ... - Bait review by NP

This is a hidden gem of a production directed by Dominic Brunt, who in his ‘day job’ plays Paddy in missable UK soap opera ‘Emmerdale’. He has directed a number of horror films, and this one concerns two brassy market stall girls and what happens when they are blackmailed.

To begin with, this runs as a convincingly comedic venture with Bex (Victoria Smurfit) and Dawn (Joanne Mitchell) trying to keep their market stall afloat whilst fending off coarse but pretty hilarious amorous advances of low life customers (including eccentric oddball comedian Charlie Chuck as Nev). They also need to escape the extortion racket carried out by local villain Si (Adam Fogerty). Jeremy (Jonathan Slinger), a smiling charmer enters their lives and appears to have the answer to their problems.

Events twist and the reveals are rarely less than disastrous for the two leads. It seems extreme measures are needed.

The comedy just manages to stay the right side of reality – Bex and Dawn are necessarily sharp-talkers, living in an area crawling with men who simply want them for one thing. They have become ‘master of the put-down’, and they are extremely witty. When events become darker, and their families (including Dawn’s autistic son and eccentric mother played by Rula Lenska) are threatened, it is impossible not to wish Si and his blackmail racket a bloody, gory destruction. Whether or not that happens, is not for me to say – but there’s an animated sequence following the end credits that is not to be missed.

Great fun.