There will undoubtedly be many movies coming out in the near future about life during the pandemic, but I’m not sure any of them will top the beautiful, resonant short Sincerely, Erik, by filmmaker Naz Riahi. This charming work about a bookseller navigating isolation in NYC during Covid-19 (played by actual bookseller Erik DuRon) was shot on location in June. Check it out: https://vimeo.com/434705621

Now that we’ve hopefully weathered the worst of it (at least in New York) and we’re feeling somewhat less traumatized by the pandemic — if not by other current events — it might feel OK to watch dark films again?

Two new movies that fit that description, albeit in very different ways, are Justine Triet’s mostly French-language psychodrama Sibyl and Jon Stevenson’s horror-thriller Rent-a-Pal, out on Friday. Both films are darkly comic and they both build to pretty extreme endings, but the similarities end there.

Sibyl is Triet’s third feature, all of which center on complicated women trying to keep it together amid tricky relationships and difficult situations. As in 2016’s In Bed with Victoria, the protagonist is played by the luminous Virginie Efira as the title character. Sibyl is a psychotherapist who is leaving the profession to write a novel — until she is pulled back in by a young woman desperate for her help.

That is Margot (a beguiling Adèle Exarchopoulos), an actress who is anxious about shooting her first major film, which happens to co-star her married lover Igor (Gaspard Ulliel).

There’s a lot going on around this core plot line, as well as in Sibyl’s life and head, including her needy sister Edith (Laure Calamy, so memorable in the series Call My Agent) and the lurking legacy of their deceased mother; Sibyl’s husband and their two young daughters; and her ex-boyfriend Gabriel (Niels Schneider), about whom she can’t stop thinking and fantasizing. In conveying all this, Sibyl is full of short, impressionistic scenes and flashbacks, which can sometimes feel disjointed.

When the increasingly dependent Margot begs Sibyl to come visit her film set in Italy, things really get complicated. This film within a film is directed by Igor’s practical wife Mika (the funniest character in the film, played by the fabulous Sandra Hüller), who is hell-bent on keeping the production going, as her actors (including her husband) argue and misbehave. Somehow, Sibyl — whose own psychic cracks are beginning to show — becomes the person everyone confides in and relies on.

Sibyl is funny and flamboyant, but it’s also about loss, sadness and self-worth. Triet stuffs a lot into her movie, and while the result is messy, it’s also fascinating and highly watchable (thanks in large part to its excellent cast).

The first feature from writer/director Jon Stevenson, Rent-A-Pal is based on a video he found of an old VHS tape called “Rent-A-Friend,” featuring a strange, friendly guy offering advice and companionship to lonely people. That’s a good premise for either a comedy or horror movie; the spare, disquieting Rent-A-Pal falls mainly into the latter category.

The film takes place in 1990, but the garish visuals, music and technology scream ’80s. Forty-year-old David (Brian Landis Folkins) is a classic solitary, sensitive type — serving as caretaker for his dementia-riddled mother (Kathleen Brady), while living in her basement. He spends a lot of time and money on Video Rendezvous, a video-profile dating service, but is not having any luck getting matched.

One day, he finds an intriguing videotape starring the super-amiable Andy (Wil Wheaton), a guy who seems to understand poor souls like David, and who offers advice and support. He asks questions and comments on David’s answers, with the ensuing “dialogue” sometimes eerily synching up. As David’s life become more depressing, he is drawn to repeated viewings of “Rent-A-Pal.”

Meanwhile, Video Rendezvous has come up with a match for David and it’s a good one. Lisa (Amy Rutledge) is a fellow sensitive soul and caretaker who seems to get him.

You don’t have to be a horror movie buff to know that mysterious, intriguing videotapes have bad consequences. Rent-A-Pal Andy doesn’t go away despite David’s new relationship, as Wil Wheaton’s beaming smile and bonhomie morphs into something else (this must have been a fun role for him). The fairly slow-paced film becomes increasingly manic, going full-out horror by the end. Creepy. claustrophobic and comic, Rent-A-Pal isn’t completely believable, but it’s suspenseful and fun, not least because of the ‘80s references.

Sibyl opens at Film at Lincoln Center on Friday, Sept. 11; Rent-A-Pal opens the same day On Demand and in select theaters.

— Marina Zogbi