The Price We Pay, 2023.
Directed by Ryûhei Kitamura.
Starring Emile Hirsch, Stephen Dorff, Gigi Zumbado, Tyler Sanders, Erika Ervin, Jesse Kinser, Sabina Mach, Vernon Wells, Tanner Zagarino, and Eleanor Burke.
SYNOPSIS:
After a pawn shop robbery goes askew, two criminals take refuge at a remote farmhouse to try to let the heat die down but find something much more menacing.
It’s a shame that Ryûhei Kitamura’s The Price We Pay (most known for The Midnight Meat Train) takes a little over half of its running time to find its footing considering that once it does, the results yield some gnarly body horror and truly visceral fight scenes that play up the damage from attempted organ harvesting.
However, the story takes a page from the From Dusk Til Dawn playbook, beginning as a crime thriller with nut jobs Alex, Cody, and Shane (Emile Hirsch, Stephen Dorff, and Tanner Zagarino) robbing a pawn shop in an incident that immediately goes sideways.
Also present during this violent shootout is Gigi Zumbado’s Grace, who has fallen on hard times financially, pleading with the manager in his office for some leeway. Right before leveraging his position into something sexually advantageous, the bullets start flying, causing him to check out the commotion and wind up gunned down in the process (not that anyone will miss him.)
With police set to arrive any second, the trio of career criminals takes Grace hostage during their great escape. It’s a getaway that doesn’t last too long, with a broken down car but potential nearby assistance from a roadside motel currently overseen by teenager Danny (Tyler Sanders) while his grandfather runs errands.
Naturally, Grace is the most sympathetic of the bunch, whereas the killers are intentionally unlikable with varying degrees of functioning moral compasses. In the case of Alex, morality is practically nonexistent, which works in the favor of Emile Hirsch leaning into chewing the scenery as a complete psychopath (he routinely makes even the most generic material tolerable to an extent.) Meanwhile, Cody refuses to dispose of Grace once she becomes a liability, as the two somewhat bond over their tragic pasts, although the script from Christopher Jolley is far too thinly written for any of that to resonate.
Therein lies the issue; it’s difficult to shift the crime thriller to the pure horror genre when none of the characters are fleshed out beyond looting and killing. There isn’t enough charm or inherent intrigue to make those 50 minutes anything but a tedious exercise delaying the inevitable. A prologue also seems to exist for no other reason than the telegraph that the swerve is coming as if the filmmakers are aware viewers might bail before then. Worse, the script ties the threads together in such a preposterous but predictable fashion you can only hope you are wrong.
Nevertheless, Danny (creepily performed by the late Tyler Sanders, gone far too soon, here seeming to draw influence from Kodi Smit-McPhee in The Power of the Dog) and the owners have some disturbing secrets to hide. The grandfather is revealed to be a twisted surgeon (Vernon Wells) intent on harvesting organs from evil people to pass them along to more well-intentioned individuals, harboring a dark backstory that, once again, doesn’t amount to much beyond the reason for the ensuing bloodbath.
Aided by a towering, physically imposing woman (Erika Ervin), the brutality on display often pulls no punches but contains so many constant quick cuts during the action your eyes might start twitching.
Even when the thrills exist, The Price We Pay is rough to watch. The best they can be said is that once it shifts genres, the filmmakers loosen up and have fun with the sick premise in gory and cartoonishly fun ways (Emile Hirsch gets a fight scene missing some key body functions, which is amusing to witness.) A blood-splattering pleasant finale also reaffirms more of what The Price We Pay should have offered.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★
Robert Kojder is a member of the Chicago Film Critics Association and the Critics Choice Association. He is also the Flickering Myth Reviews Editor. Check here for new reviews, follow my Twitter or Letterboxd, or email me at MetalGearSolid719@gmail.com
Originally published February 20, 2023. Updated February 21, 2023.
