Cheap Thrills, 2013.
Directed by E.L. Katz.
Starring Pat Healy, Ethan Embry, Sara Paxton, David Koechner and Amanda Fuller.
SYNOPSIS:
Determined to drown his sorrows Craig heads to a bar where he runs into old friend Vince. Things then go from nostalgic to crazy when the duo hooks up with a wealthy couple out for a good time and Craig and Vince turn out to be their entertainment for the evening.
Warning – mild spoilers ahead…
I warn against spoilers, but really it’s pretty much impossible to spoil Cheap Thrills. This is a prime example of a film setting its parameters early on and sticking to them resolutely right through to the bitter end. Despite the brutality of the later stages of the film, there’s nothing you could say truly constitutes a twist, only the inevitable result of the contract entered into by the protagonists. The pleasure is derived not from the left turns the film could make but from seeing the inevitable unfold.
Cheap Thrills is a film so defined that it’s premise that it’s more or less necessary to outline its plot. Craig (Pat Healy) and Vince (Ethan Embry) meet randomly at a bar for the first time in five years. Craig desperately needs money: he’s just been fired, his idyllic domestic scenario now precarious under the threat of imminent eviction. Enter Colin and Violet (David Koechner and Sara Paxton), an impossibly wealthy couple with a taste for the impulsive. What starts with playful drinking wagers soon turns to Craig getting his nose broken by a strip club security guard. The group move to the couple’s house, and the wagers develop into something far more sinister.
To say that the events at the end come as no surprise is not to diminish their impact. Certainly from the first violent act: Vince casually throwing Craig to the floor in order to be the first to make Colin a drink, we know what road we’re about to go down. To see the two old friends turn against each other so quickly is decidedly unpleasant, but always perversely compelling. it would have been easy for Katz to exploit this kind of premise in the bluntest terms, turning to the mutilation early on and making a kind of Sundance Saw, but instead he takes a much darker approach, wringing his shocks not from excessive violence but instead from something more psychological. The nature of their falling out seems to hit on something deeper than just their respective financial situations, and instead on a wider dissatisfaction with their own lives, and their own failure, particularly on Craig’s part, to achieve their youthful potential. These are themes similar to those explored in David Fincher’s Fight Club, but while that film ultimately seemed to propose that a meaning could be found in an unfair society, Cheap Thrills maintains a philosophy of resolute nihilism. As Craig himself reasons, if he can cut off his finger to feed his family for six months, why wouldn’t he? Stated in such blunt terms, he has a point. The things they are doing, at least at first, are humiliating, often painful, but the rewards (at least given their respective situations) are arguably worth it to them.
Cheap Thrills knows where its appeal lies, and while it delivers on its promise with enthusiasm, Katz seems determined to say something more than just ‘money makes people do bad things’. The nastiness hits hard, but what elevates Cheap Thrills above the standard exploitation thriller is the lingering sadness after the credits roll. The final shot forces you to consider the consequences of what’s happened in that apartment when these people re-enter the real world, and they they’re none too positive.
Flickering Myth Rating: Film ★ ★ ★ ★ / Movie ★ ★ ★ ★
Jake Wardle
Originally published September 24, 2013. Updated April 11, 2018.
