SpuffyWeb Sadly Over-hyped

GetPapa Far from Perfect, Far from Terrible

ShangLuda Admirable film.

Comwayon A Disappointing Continuation

vegasjunkie888 Some might say "cheap thrills" was warped, shocking and occasionally graphic. This movie wasn't intended for a regular audience. This is a solid twisted dark comedy top to bottom. Entertainment for entertainments sake. Just to be enjoyed, no hidden messages about the state of our culture, just a cool flick that within the first 20 minutes you'll probably have a pretty good idea where they are going with it. Totally satisfied and in adding it to my "cool twisted s*** list list" 8/10

MrGKB ...this debut feature from auteur E. L. Katz packs a solid punch to the head, along with a few kicks to the groin. Couched in metaphors of class warfare and sexual politics, "Cheap Thrills" is essentially an age-old tale about the consequences of dealing with the Devil or rubbing the wrong lamp. Be careful what you wish for, etc. The tight, tense script provides all that's necessary for a powerhouse ensemble to run with, and run they do: Pat "Compliance" Healy tops a rich trifecta of genre appearances along with "Starry Eyes," Ethan "Dragnet" Embry tears it up as Healy's equally down on his luck friend, while David "Anchorman" Koechner and Sara "The Last House on the Left" Paxton wickedly enjoy bacchanalian and sybaritic excess as the aforementioned pair's demonic one-percenter antagonists. It may have been a cheap film, but it looks and feels better than ones with ten times the budget. Kudos to the production team top to bottom. Too bad the film was (apparently) poorly marketed; hopefully it will redeem itself on video. Recommended if you're into downbeat thrillers.

Ollie Willis Cheap Thrills (2013) is an independent film based on the idea that people will do anything for money. The story follows two friends who haven't seen each other in five years fall into a game with an insanely wealthy man. The game, do what I say and I will give you money. The beginning of the film showed promise as did the premise of the film. I went in with a positive head on and for the first 20 minutes I was enjoying it. Then I started to notice something, had my curtains always been that colour? I got bored very quickly as the film seemed to repeat itself time and time again. It reminded me of Jackass meets Saw but with none of the humour of Jackass and none of the... well OK Saw was rubbish but you get my point. The acting was great; I could find no fault with the actors or their performances. It was the characters which annoyed me, OK you need money, we get it, we all need money, but I don't think I would cut my little finger off. Instead I would get down the job centre and find another job. Every dare got progressively violent and disgusting and we all knew how this was going to end, right from their first encounter. It was a slow slog to get there with a small twist at the end which admittedly provided a minor shock, but nothing good enough to save the film from itself. I've heard a lot of people praising this film, praising its insight and comedy factor and I can only assume they were watching a different film. There was no insight into this, no originality, yes it was a study of the human condition of what people would go through to get money, a comment on reality TV, but, like reality TV, I was bored, annoyed and utterly unimpressed. Apart from the performances, this film was terrible. It left me feeling depressed that I just spent a portion of time watching such rubbish while at the same time feeling relief on two accounts. One, at least its finished, and two, at least I didn't go to the cinema to see it. Rubbish on all levels, don't believe those people praising it, they're probably the film's PR team.

estebangonzalez10 "Let's keep this going. What do you want me to do next?"As the title suggests, director E.L. Katz delivers some cheap thrills in this extremely dark comedy which begins as a standard down on his luck tale of a family man trying to survive through the recession after losing his job and receiving an eviction notice. The first half of the film (my favorite part) slowly builds up the tension while gradually getting darker as we approach the final act. There is a saying in my country which translated goes something like this: "For money, the monkey dances," and that is what first time screen writer David Chirchirillo is exploring in this black comedy: to what extremes is someone willing to go for monetary gain. Are our values worth negotiating with in exchange for money? This theme is richly explored in Cheap Thrills through two characters (played by Pat Healy and Ethan Embry) who meet a rich married couple (Sara Paxton and David Koechner) in a bar and begin playing an innocent dare game. The couple offer them money in exchange for them doing a series of dares involving drinking a shot of tequila, punching the security guard in the face, and so on. Of course we all know that this is going to escalate quickly into something much darker as they begin paying the consequences for their action, and it does. Cheap Thrills has all the right ingredients to become a cult favorite for some audiences, but it just didn't work that well for me as things began to get darker. What I appreciated the most about this film is that it plays out perfectly as sort of an allegory of our society's obsession over reality TV shows in which we are offered an opportunity to get rich by simply competing against each other in a series of dares. It actually is spelled out during one scene where Fear Factor is mentioned and this is exactly what the film is trying to get at. As we are judging these characters for how inhumane the series of dares are turning into, it all of a sudden puts a mirror into our society's obsession over reality TV shows similar to Fear Factor. I think that if the film would've come out some 7 years earlier it would've been more effective because those shows have become a bit outdated. It also shows how we are always competing with our friends to become more successful than the other, and the way we justify our actions even though we know our behavior was dubious. The film reminded me a lot of Saw where the rich couple take on the role of Jigsaw as they get a kick out of watching their victims compete for money (instead of their lives). The clever difference is that this time their victims voluntarily place themselves in this situation as victims of their circumstance and so the game begins. But then during the second act it slowly identifies more with darker and gory horror films such as Hostel which was where I began losing interest. The performances in this film are solid. At first I found David Koechner to be over the top, but everything begins to make sense as you stick with the premise. His wife, played by Sara Paxton makes for an interesting character despite not doing much. Just the way she is gazing at everyone with her beautiful eyes, it becomes obvious that she isn't someone you can fully trust. Ethan Embry and Pat Healy are convincing as the out of luck old school buddies who bump into each other at a bar. The film focuses on establishing their relationship first and then it slowly progresses into portraying each other's flaws. There aren't any likable characters in this film, but they all deliver strong and engaging performances nonetheless. If you like you films dark and nasty then Cheap Thrills might just be your thing, but it just wasn't for me despite appreciating some of the things it was saying about our society.