Défis extrêmes

A dark, sadistic debasing experience in how low desperate people are willing to go to, ironically, raise themselves out of their dire life situation. This is a disturbing, yet compelling watch and draws parallels in how quickly society would collapse without order and is extremely depressing in that this kind of 'entertainment' is not something that would be discounted in a future society. We already have TV shows where people eat strange animal parts in the name of entertainment. It is depressing that this is a possible future game show in the making. All that said it is well acted and very hard to turn away as each dare gets becomes more extreme with a brutal finale. Well done to the director for keeping a realism to the film without wandering into fantasy.

I saw CHEAP THRILLS last night! In case you've never heard of it, Cheap Thrills is a black comedy thriller directed by horror journalist turned director E.L. Katz. The film stars Pat Healy and Ethan Embry as two old friends who, while commiserating over their extreme financial woes, meet a rich, thrill seeking couple, played by David Koechner and Sara Paxton, that derive enjoyment from making wacky bets involving risky dares and large amounts of money. The night starts off light and fun but as the evening wares on and the stakes become higher, both the ties of friendship and the limits to which each will go to make quick cash and tested to the breaking point.

I was thoroughly impressed with this movie. It's exceptionally well acted with Healy, Embry and Koechner playing their respective roles famously. For having a budget of less than $20k it is truly amazing to see how well this movie is made. Hats off especially to the art direction and cinematography in this movie which is all aces as it uses color and lighting very uniquely to give Cheap Thrills a dark and sickly cool look. Ultimately I really enjoyed this film and despite maybe not having the best ending in my opinion, it's still damn good movie which should be seen. Cheap Thrills gets a 4...out of 5.

Pat Healey of The Innkeepers fame plays a family man and blue collar worker who receives an eviction notice and is laid off on the same day. On the way home, he runs into an old friend at a bar, and the two of them run into an eccentric rich couple played by David Koechner and Sara Paxton (again of The Innkeepers) who propose a twisted series of games for money at their private residence.

To compete against each other for large rewards, Craig and Vince engage in more and more disturbing acts of depravity, self-mutilation and moral bankruptcy.

This is a shocker, and a hard-to-watch one at that. What keeps it bearable is that it's a very FUNNY shocker, particularly with Koechner providing most of the black comedy.

Ultimately this is an allegorical haves-and-have-nots tale that looks at the lengths people will go to in the name of financial desperation. The climax is disturbing and had me doing some sharp self-reflection. Not bad for a first-time director and a tiny budget.

An allegory of sorts for the Occupy generation, "Cheap Thrills" endeavors to answer the age-old question of just how far you would be willing to go for a boatload of cash. Especially when you've just lost your job, you're being evicted from your home, and you have a wife and toddler counting on you for support. This is the dilemma facing Craig (Pat Healy), an Average-Joe, mild-mannered urbanite who's genuinely trying to play by the rules but who just keeps getting dumped on by a world that seems dead-set against him ever achieving his portion of the American Dream.

On the night he loses his job as a mechanic at a Southern California garage, Craig wanders into a local bar only to hook up with an old buddy of his from childhood (Ethan Embry) and an obnoxious, borderline- sadistic millionaire (David Koechner) who keeps tossing money at the two men whenever they perform impromptu, trivial tasks for him. Things turn serious, however, when Mr. Moneybags ups the ante, throwing out ever more enticing financial rewards for ever more vile and degrading stunts.

Though fairly simple and straightforward on the surface, "Cheap Thrills," written by Trent Haaga and David Chichirillo and directed by E.L Katz, is really a modern-day parable about greed, desperation, exploitation and the dangers of unbridled macho bravado. It portrays, in miniature, a world in which a small number of people have virtually everything in terms of wealth and power, while the vast majority wind up with virtually nothing they can call their own. Craig and Vince have so little to lose, in fact, that they are willing to go to unimaginable extremes to get at least something to keep themselves from feeling like total failures in life. They sense that their very identity as men is on the line here and, thus, they will stop at nothing to assert their primacy over one another, the first step in securing that which they feel is rightfully owed to them and their families.

Colin, along with his equally amoral wife, Violet (Sara Paxton), on the other hand, represents the callous 1% who amuse themselves at the expense of other people's desperation, going so far as to pit the have- nots against one another for the sheer pleasure of watching them brawling in the dirt over the scraps that are condescendingly thrown their way. This is Darwin's "survival of the fittest" as it is played out in 21st Century America.

Crude, brutal, at times unwatchable even, "Cheap Thrills," nevertheless, manages to get under the viewer's skin, forcing him to face harsh truths about society and human nature and to ask himself just how far he would be willing to go to get what he needed to survive. It doesn't paint a very flattering portrait of us as a species, but, let's face it, sometimes you don't always like what you see when you catch a glimpse of yourself in a mirror.

Saw this at SXSW and I must admit it was very well done. This won the Audience Award for the Midnighters at the festival and it is wholeheartedly deserved. The film is a hybrid genre film with a constantly shifting tone of hilarity, drama, thrills, and extremely dark themes.

The story follows everyman Craig (Pat Healy, who should finally get some deserved recognition for his extremely demanding role in this) who is down on his luck after having a really bad day. He hits the local bar on the way home from work and sees an old high school buddy (Ethan Embry, in an against-type role that completely works) and the two meet up with a strange couple that wants to have a drink with them (David Koechner and Sara Paxton, who are both deliciously hilarious and mysterious). The four then have what can only be described as a truly horrific night and that is all I really want to say about it because the less you know the better. The concept of the film is laid out easily and quickly, which is developed fully throughout the film as the stakes are raised higher and higher with every passing minute.

I must say that I was very happy to see the movie take so many risks. The content of the film is definitely not for the faint at heart, but if you like envelope-pushing pieces than this is the film for you. Im sure this will divide audiences, but the theater I was in had a great energy and made the film really fun to watch. The director EL Katz introduced the film and told the audience that "it is okay to laugh." After seeing the film, I understand why he said that. There are so many uncomfortable, cringe-inducing moments in the film that the only thing to do is either to curl up in the fetal position or laugh your head off. I had no clue where it was going and the final image in the film will go down as a classic final shot. It is perfection.

People will be definitely talking about this one. It is highly entertaining, the performances are excellent, the writing is tight, and the content of the film is entirely original and unpredictable. I actually saw it twice during SXSW and it was even better a second time. Tons of twists and turns, so please DO NOT spoil it for yourself. Go into it with little knowledge and enjoy the twisted mayhem.