Cheap Thrills

Drafthouse Films | Release Date: March 21, 2014

6.5	USER SCORE Generally favorable reviews based on 51 Ratings

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DawdlingPoetNov 28, 2021

This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. This is a black comedy drama, which features themes including infidelity, bets, dares and satire. I expected it to consist of more in the way of gorey visual effects but there was surprisingly little of that. It starts off as a bunch of mates going from bar to bar, encouraging each other to do more potentially risque things, as a way to pass time - fairly regular adolescent boys stuff, really, no great shakes as such. I noticed the camerawork did seem particularly wobbly and jerky, giving it a somewhat amateur feel - maybe the viewer is to imagine seeing what we see through the eyes of someone drugged up and/or inebriated, as the various characters tend to be. The lighting and lack of watermarks/stamps on the screen made it clear that this isn't to be regarded as a 'found footage' type of film. Based on the main plot, I expected it to be a bit like the US TV show Jackass.

I also found it hard to entirely follow the dialogue, with some scenes featuring quite hushed whispers between different characters. The plot seemed a bit bland and meandering but I kept watching regardless and things did speed up a little bit after a while (the first half an hour or so). However, I didn't feel bothered about any of the characters, which was a big put off. The characters are all motivated by greed and reliant on illegal drugs, so they aren't the kind of people you might necessarily 'root for', as they say.

Cast wise, Pat Healy plays Craig Daniels, Ethan Embry plays Vince and David Koechner plays Colin, while Sara Paxton plays the main female role, as fellow group member Violet. The roles were, I suppose, done relatively well, they didn't greatly stand out or otherwise, to be honest.

Content wise, the film contains sex scenes and partial nudity, with a scene being set in a strip club. There are scenes involving toilet activity and scenes with strong violence, with bloody injuries shown. There is, somewhat unsurprisingly, a lot of strong language and there is also a strong presence of drugs, with characters shown snorting cocaine. The film is somewhat brutal in terms of not just the violent scenes but the darker themes covered, such as intense greed and the pursuit of money and fortune above close to anything else. The most brutal part of the film is close to the end and its fair to say that its definitely not a film for squeamish people in any way, shape or form, although the gore/squeamish moments take so long to really come to light that I imagine a fair few people may have stopped watching by then, so its a little hard to see what sort of target audience it particularly works for. In any case, the film is quite frightening and disturbing and so its been given a 15 rating to reflect this.

I don't mind a bit of gore, gross out comedy and horror elements when done well - for one example, I saw the New Zealand set film 'Black Sheep' earlier this year (which I also reviewed) and I did find it quite amusing and entertaining while gory but this I didn't find funny or especially entertaining either - it didn't stand out to me at all. Its got more of the tone of a film such as Shaun of the Dead but without the really memorable scenes, like when Shaun is in the pub killing zombies to the tune of 'Don't Stop Me Now' (I apologise if this is a spoiler to anyone who may not yet have seen that particular film but I like to think its fairly well known).

Unsurprisingly it is pretty tasteless, which is what I expected and should come as no real surprise but without there being much in the way of solid parody or a decent backbone to the plot, it made it quite unmemorable. I'm not sure if there's anything much else I can say about it too really. I got this film on Blu-Ray as it was on sale in Poundland and I couldn't resist trying a film I hadn't seen before for the princely sum of £1, especially with it being in HD quality.

There are some surprisingly gross out moments towards the very end but it felt a bit like too little too late by then but then maybe I'm not the best judge of this type of film - its only my opinion anyway. I don't mind watching this kind of thing as long as I know it isn't real - ok yes im a wuss, so what? lol. It is very dark in tone and may make you think about what motivates people today - perhaps there's something bad to be said about capitalism et al. but I don't think this film was made to be a big moral tale above all else!. Make of it what you will but I wasn't greatly keen on this film overall. I imagine if it would appeal to anyone, it'd probably mainly be to teenage boys and adolescents(?).

No, I wouldn't go out of your way to watch this - that should be pretty obvious. Parts may appeal to those who like gross out humour and dark comedy but it seemed to meander plot wise and the characters didn't seem likeable, so I wasn't entirely interested in it. Its not quite what its trying to be and at just under an hour and a half, it felt like a bit long, if anything, which isnt a good thing.… Expand

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