Cheap Thrills

This is either brilliantly written or badly written. I don't know because I don't know what the writers were intending. If this is a brilliant horror film with a hidden monster and a strong counter culture message, it deserves a five for having guts to carry it's message so quietly and so well. If this is actually a case of plot holes and bad writing with socially accepted traditions meant to paint in the rest of the character, it's worth a two for being lazy and relying on socially accepted clichés. I'm giving it a 3.5 (rounded to 4) to be safe. Overall it was worth the watch but I don't think I'd rewatch it any time soon.Why do I say this might be a counter-culture messaged horror film? Spoilers ahead.We are supposed to feel sympathetic for Craig because he has a wife and kid and is going to be evicted. When you are going to be evicted you have to miss rent for multiple months, be given multiple "you are late, please pay" warnings, and then you are given an eviction notice. He shouldn't have been shocked to see the eviction notice on his door. Also, how does the wife NOT know about the money problems? How poor is his relationship with his super important family that he couldn't have a talk about their spending habits? If things are this bad certainly there are other bills not being paid. That means lots of collection notices. Working as a mechanic is good money. He lives in a small apartment in a cheap neighborhood. How did he end up so far in the rear? Also, mechanics are always desirable. Finding more work should have been easy. Put it all together and you get a neglectful prideful/fearful man who lies to his family constantly, probably as a selfish attempt to save face at his failed writing career. This is NOT the behavior of a responsible, loving father and husband. It's a simmering monster.And then we have Vince the sex-maniac dropout who has done nothing with his life supposedly. Wait, if that's true, why is he the one with a stable place to sleep, money, and a job? Ok, so he went to jail once, but he has been on the right side of the law since then. It's not like we haven't heard of anyone ever making a mistake then trying to get better. When we first see Vince he offers Craig a few hundred bucks to try to help him. He worked hard at menial jobs that pay way less than a mechanic makes to get that money. People won't give him better jobs because he has a criminal record. Vince even says so. A few hundred bucks is a week's pay for him. He doesn't care, he wants to help. When he finds out this won't help, he is sad. He encourages Craig to do things because he wants to help Craig feel better any way he can, even if that means goading him to have some drinks and to play the couple's game for awhile. Vince can be competitive even to the point of playing dirty, but outside of that he doesn't appear to be a selfish or cruel man. He even apologizes for most of the things he ends up doing to Craig. This is not a monster. It's a man who makes mistakes.He and Craig supposedly were alike in high school except for the fact that Vince was always standing up for Craig because Craig was too scared to stand up for himself. What happened? Vince didn't get married or have kids. He chose not to follow the status quo of "get a woman, get a job, get a baby, die" that society forces on people. Without those extra responsibilities tossed on him he could think clearly and realised when things went too far. Craig was willing to lose the last shreds of his humanity in order to maintain the socially approved way of living. Vince wasn't. This message is about as counter culture as you can get.If this message was the writer's intention, kudos for being bold enough to buck the standard "babies and families are always good and all good people have them" cliché. If the lack of research into what would lead to Craig's situation plus the cliché excuse that being a parent somehow makes everything he does OK as it's "for the family" actually turned what was supposed to be a hero into a monster, then this movie sucks. As to which it is, unless the creators straight up say then I wouldn't know. Watch it if it interests you. That's all I can say.

Seeing the trailer, then browsing the reviews, both 1-star and 5-star ratings, avoiding ones with spoilers, one gets a good sense what to expect.In short, Cheap Thrills delivers on its promise; a well executed film.But, Cheap Thrills is much more than just a film. It stands as a metaphor for the “western civilization”. Its brilliance is in the subtle deliverance of this message to the audience. The deft will walk away having experienced a new documentary format, the daft, a raw thriller/horror flick, ready for the next workday water-cooler banter.The protagonist of the movie is your everyday, blue-collar Joe, or in this case Craig. He has a family, a job, rent and bills. All things that keep him occupied on a daily basis. Vince, Craig’s long-lost friend, is more of a misfit of society. Vince has no family and has an unorthodox occupation, yet, he too has to scramble to feed himself on a daily basis.Next, enter the antagonists of the story. A nice looking couple. The man very wealthy, assertive and confident, with a very beautiful, young wife. With all the money and amenities they can afford, the wife seems very bored and disinterested. Hence, the two are always out looking for, you guessed it, insert-title-of-the-movie-here to keep boredom at bay.The two antagonists represent the “elite” of society. The ones who have it all and make the rules, by which, the rest must play. This is made evident when the four characters meet. The way the system works is, if you play by the rules, you are rewarded and get to move ahead. If you refuse to play by the rules, then there is no reward.Our characters learn rather quickly how the system works. The system conditions (trains) them in phases. Each phase, escalates their exposure to the system, the risks and gains. As Craig and Vince learn the rules, they start to become comfortable, and in a strange way, enjoy playing the games, and start to feel part of the system and one with the “elite”. This is a mistake. The two characters are clearly there for the entertainment and enjoyment of their rulers, who set the rules of the games for them to play. Not playing the game simply means no reward, however, try and make your own rules, and you are corrected in no time; as Vince finds out when his pet idea is shutdown and frowned upon.In the end, the “elite” get what they want, at the expense of their underlings. It shows that they can even get away with murder. And the serf must follow the rules set forth by their masters.

Cheap thrills is an excellent movie if you are a fan of the seedy and disgusting side of life. Rather than a thriller or a horror, this film is a very, very dark comedy which asks a serious question......when times are hard, how far will you go to survive?Craig, the main protagonist, is already facing eviction when he loses his job. Having one last drink in a local bar to put off going home to give his wife and child the bad news, he comes face to face with an old school friend, Vince, who he hasn't seen in years. Whilst they are catching up they encounter a couple, Colin and Violet, who are out celebrating Violet's birthday, and as part of the celebration they want the two friends to spend the evening with them, doing "dares" for money. The first dare is simple, down a shot, so how hard can the game be?The dares get more and more depraved as the money amounts increase. How far is too far?This film is not going to be for everyone. It is downright nasty in places, but if you like horror, thrillers, and dark comedy you should definitely give this a look, if you don't mind gore. I found it very entertaining.Content warning: Swearing, Blood & Gore, Sex, Drugs.

Cheap Thrills has the type of concept which could easily live up to its title. Two rich sickos torturing a couple of poor strangers by daring them to do progressively twisted tasks could result in an exploitative B-movie designed to shock the audience for the sake of it. Thankfully, Cheap Thrills manages to offer much more than a few cheap thrills. It’s actually an intelligent, engaging and darkly humorous little film with a few hints of postmodernism not too dissimilar to Funny Games.Pat Healy and Sara Paxton made a terrifically witty duo in Ti West’s limp, The Innkeepers and deserved to appear in a much better film. Cheap Thrills is that better film, and whilst Sara doesn’t have particularly much to do, Pat puts on a similarly likable performance as the down on his luck protagonist, who we can all relate to. In fact, all of the characters manage to be engaging and interesting. I love how realistically the film progressed from a friendly encounter on a night out to a sick set of dares.For a film largely set in one location with just four characters, it’s never boring. Quite the opposite, in fact I was left wanting more and I think it could’ve pushed the boundaries more, but that’s probably just my twisted horror nut coming out! Where the film actually succeeds is that it doesn’t make the dares the focus of the entire film. Instead it’s much more concerned with the characters and how they develop, thus making for a much better quality and more involving piece of filmmaking.The comment it makes on society is quite heavy-handed but nevertheless an intelligent and relevant one. It’s best to view the two rich psychos as symbols, rather than characters. They’re obviously representative of the bourgeoisie and how they exploit the poor minority. However, the film also makes a subtle comment on the psychotic nature of audiences too. I thought that the ending kind of made out like the psychos were doing it all for us, the viewing public, thus adding another intelligent and postmodern layer to the film.Overall the film is a striking debut and this E.L Katz bloke looks like he has a promising future in the horror movie industry. His directing was consistently intense and he managed to build some massive amounts of tension. Cheap Thrills may falter on repeated viewings (due to the lack of a surprise factor) but for a first time viewing there’s very little to complain about. Perhaps it could’ve been a little more twisted, but really I was surprised by how intelligent the screenplay actually was. Cheap Thrills offers a lot more than its title suggests. It’s probably one of the best horror-comedies we’ve had in a while.

This was a breezy, sleazy little thriller with a streak of the blackest of black humour running through it. It's violent and nasty in places but rarely less than entertaining.Simple set up - two old friends who've not met for some time bump into each other in a bar. As they grab a drink and catch up, they befriend a couple in the same bar who are flashing a fair amount of cash around. They use this seemingly endless supply of notes to start daring our boys into completing certain challenges. These kick off with winding up a girl at the bar or slapping a stripper on the ass but quickly escalate from here and things rapidly spiral into bonkers territory. Friendships are tested as the immortal question of how far will you go for money is posed (repeatedly).Things build up nicely and maintain a relative believability despite the inevitable carnage. The acting from the main foursome is strong and carries things well and the odd bleak chuckle is thrown up by the script to prevent things getting too dark and dingy. Overall, I found it a surprisingly rewarding effort and it flies by in a swift 85 minutes so doesn't outstay its welcome.

Thought this was interesting and promising at the start and I was enjoying it very much, and then, ultimately I felt annoyed at the seemingly 'glorious' character transformation of one of the characters (I won't give spoilers). Also I thought the entire film hinged on just one tiny 'revelation' at the end, which was not strong enough to rescue the story. It's kind of like a really long contrived build-up in a joke to a lame punchline, and you're meant to be left thinking 'oh wow that's so cool,' but I thought 'God, is that it?'. And I did not like the final scene at all. You're supposed to be thinking (of the character) 'wow what a transformation,' and all I could think was 'what a d*ck,' ditto to the director for making the last scene stretch out so long.

Dark, funny and devastating, this is a four-hander featuring the under-rated Ethan Embry (Declan from Brotherhood) and the wonderful David Koechner in a role that seems custom-built for him as the wealthy, amoral, but not unsympathetic dude, who treats his girl on her birthday to a display of just exactly how low folks will go to win increasingly large sums of untaxable currency, and the sort of eye-opening fun to be had along the way.