A tense, knotty (in more ways than one) valentine of leaching amorality that evokes memories of the infamous Milgram Experiment, the darkly comedic psychological horror film Cheap Thrills is a satisfyingly warped walk on the wild side. Playing puppet master to wonderful effect, director E.L. Katz oversees a superb, smartly constrained technical package and a rich quartet of gripping performances, resulting in a violent, emotionally charged romp with surprising undertones of social commentary.
Cheap Thrills unfolds in Los Angeles, where would-be writer Craig Daniels (Pat Healy) is feeling the pinch of his occupational failings, what with a 15-month-old son and the eviction notice that greets him on his door as he heads out to work at an oil change establishment. Later in the day, he’s fired — the result of some unfortunate downsizing. Unable to immediately face his wife, Audrey (Amanda Fuller), Craig heads out for a drink at a dive bar, where he runs into an old friend from high school, Vince (Ethan Embry).
In short order, Craig and Vince meet a pair of generous partiers, Colin (David Koechner) and his young wife Violet (Sara Paxton). At first they seem only a bit quirky, but when they all repair to Colin’s well-appointed Hollywood Hills home, it’s not long before an underlying unscrupulousness is revealed. A series of friendly bets quickly become decidedly less so. Soon Craig and Vince are shitting in Colin’s neighbor’s house and then much, much worse — all for cash that Colin doles out without a care. A grim race to the bottom of the ethical barrel ensues.
In a movie like Saw, the villainous Jigsaw had a rationalized motivation — and indeed, what might be described as an overarching worldview. That’s somewhat lacking here in what motivates Colin and Violet (at least in more explicitly underlined fashion), but the script for Cheap Thrills, by Trent Haaga and David Chirchirillo, deftly taps into latent fraternal competitiveness and socioeconomic class conflict between friends. As it unspools, it also assays moral rot, and the fissure points in the America that exists for the “rest of us” majority when one-percenters see fit to make entertainment out of our financial desperation. The allegory connects with a bracing thump, even if it’s not the main thing.
On a more immediate level, Cheap Thrills works because of its superlative cast, all of whom deliver wonderful performances. While still lined with larger-than-life notes, Koechner gets to showcase a darker nature than his supporting roles in movies like the Anchorman films and A Good Old-Fashioned Orgy have afforded. Paxton, meanwhile, imbues her blithe vixen with an unsettling detachment that registers outside of the movie. It’s Healy, though, who’s the film’s anchor. Clean-scrubbed and bespectacled, but with healthy pinches of anxiety and exasperation, he has the perfect countenance for Cheap Thrills — a surrogate for Everyman America, struggling through a dark game that may or may not be totally rigged, but either way is surely damaging to the soul.
Housed in a regular plastic clear Amaray case, Cheap Thrills come to DVD via Drafthouse Films, presented in a 2.35:1 widescreen transfer that preserves the aspect ratio of its original theatrical exhibition, along with a Dolby digital 5.1 surround sound audio track. Its slipcase provides reversible illustrated cover art (above), along with a 16-page black-and-white booklet full of photos, credits, publicity stories (some real, some phony) and other material. There’s also a DRM-free digital download copy of the movie.
Against a static menu screen, eight chapter stops allow viewers the opportunity to dive into segments of the movie for repeat viewing. Bonus features, meanwhile, include a feature-length audio commentary track with Katz and Healy, plus a collection of trailers for Klown, Wake in Fright, A Band Called Death, Wrong and several other Drafthouse titles. The biggest and best extras, though, are a pair of video supplements. First up is a six-and-a-half-minute clip from the film’s Fantastic Fest debut, where audience members take part in a series of dares with the cast prior to the movie’s premiere. This leads to Embry dipping his penis in a cocktail later sipped by a guy, another guy dipping his testicles in sriracha sauce, a woman eating a popsicle covered in crickets, Healy removing his pants, and a third gentleman getting the film’s title tattooed on his ass.
There’s also a comprehensive, 40-minute making-of documentary, Vital Heat, directed by T.J. Nordaker, that serves as a nice look at shoestring-budget independent filmmaking. Chronicling the movie’s 14-day Los Angeles shoot in September 2012, this short film includes on-set chats with the producers and principal players, and the fact that it unfolds more or less in chronological order means viewers get to experience the highs and lows (losing power during a heat-induced rolling blackout) in parallel fashion, right alongside the creative participants. Naturally rich in anecdotes, amusing asides (one interviewee characterizes the smell of a cramped studio apartment serving as the shooting location for Craig and Audrey’s domicile as “ripe men and stale Cheese-Its”) and budget-effects revelations (three rotisserie chickens get dressed as meat of another variety), this short also scores points for its honesty about razor’s-edge dissonance and frustration that are bound to be a part of any such cramped and chaotic artistic endeavor. Katz (who bears a striking physical resemblance a young Stanley Kubrick) is a candid interview subject, opening up about his first stab at directing, but other parties are just as open and forthcoming too. Things culminate with more footage from the movie’s bow at Fantestic Fest a full year later, putting a triumphant cap on the entire white-knuckle creative ride. To purchase the Cheap Thrills DVD via Drafthouse, click here; to purchase via Half, click here. Or if Amazon is totally your thing, meanwhile, click here. B (Movie) A- (Disc)