Rent-A-Pal (2020)

David is a lonely man who takes care of his dementia addled Mom and lives in the basement. He doesn’t work since taking care of her is a full time job.  He joins a dating service but has no luck. He picks up a tape called Rent-A-Pal where someone named Andy pretends the viewer is his best friend and leaves spaces where the viewer can answer questions.

At first David is not impressed. But he has no company except for his mother and after repeated viewings, David feels like he has a new friend.  He watches the tape over and over, and gets to know it by heart.

When he gets matched with a kind woman who works with the elderly and understands what he’s goes through with his Mom, they hit it off. David is excited and can’t wait to tell his best friend. But  Andy feels like David has deserted him.  The rest of the movie is just kind of icky.

The quote on the cover about the scariest villain of the year totally skewed my viewpoint of what was going to happen in this film. I kept waiting for terribly villainous things to happen, but it was just a video tape being watched by a man having a mental breakdown.