Cheap Thrills
Director: E.L. Katz
Writer: Trent Haaga, David Chirchirillo
Cast: Pat Healy, Ethan Embry, David Koechner, Sara Paxton, Amanda Fuller
Part of: /slash Filmfestival

Plot:
Craig (Pat Healy) used to be a journalist but now he’s working in a garage. Or rather he was working in a garage – but he was just fired, which really doesn’t help him or his family with their general money problems. As he tries to drink his sorrows away, he runs into Vince (Ethan Embry), an old acquaintance. As they catch up, they meet Violet (Sara Paxton) and Colin (David Koechner) who are obviously made of money. Violet and Colin start offering Craig and Vince money for various, increasingly outlandish wagers.

Cheap Thrills was a movie like a punch in the stomach but in a good way [yeah, I know: as if there was a good way to be punched in the stomach]. It was a tense, awesome piece of cinema.

Cheap Thrills was not particularly unforeseeable. In fact, it was pretty clear where things were headed – if not in detail, so in principle. But the fact that you knew that things were only going to get worse was part of the reason why things were so incredibly tense.

Of course, that’s not the only thing that made the movie tense. There was also the absolute fantastic cast. Pat Healy was already great in The Innkeepers, but he outdid himself here. Ethan Embry was really cool, too. David Koechner was a scene stealer. [And it was probably a good idea to have Sara Paxton play a character with barely any facial expression and very few lines.]

The movie certainly doesn’t shrink from the violence either, though it still finds time in-between to make you laugh. [Which might even make things worse in the long run.]

At it’s heart, though, the movie is about how awful people are. And for a while after seeing it, I did hate humanity a little bit (I usually don’t. I like humans), I was that caught up in it. It won’t make you a happier person, but it will leave you a satisfied movie-watcher.

Summarizing: heavy, but oh so good.