Disc Reviews

Cheap Thrills Blu-ray Review

29th Jul 2014

Craig is down on his luck. On a particularly horrid day after losing his job he finds himself in a dive bar where he runs into old time friend, Vince. Drowning their sorrows together, Craig and Vince’s night takes a turn for the more upbeat when they have a drink with wealthy couple Colin and Violet.

Colin it seems likes to indulge himself and uses his wallet to get there; to the point where he is happy to throw money at Craig and Vince when it comes to playing childish pranks. But once the drink and drugs start to flow, Colin’s dares take a turn for the more extreme and Craig and Vince find themselves pitted in a dark game fueled by a thrist for money at the expense of everything else, while Colin and Violet watch on.

In short the entire cast is terrific in each of their respective roles. Pat Healy as Craig is a strong morale centre put to the test of his limits while Ethan Embry relishes the more brutish role of Vince. David Koechner’s Colin knows how to play charming, how to lead scenes and is often the vocal instigator of everything that happens, but you can easily see that he is ran with a desire to please his more dormant wife lingering behind him in silence. Sara Paxton takes the minimalist approach and works wonders with it as Violet.

The premise leaps very successfully from the lows of toilet humour to very dark rooted drama. There is an undoubted bloodlust in the film that fuels the fires of most of the characters needs and wants. Occasionally this lands the audience is the zone of making sick jokes for laughs or for gross out black humour. Equally though, there is plenty of character study often drawn with the way we see characters observe each other. This along with an occasionally ambient soundtrack is more than enough to forgive any of the more puerile decisions.

Cheap Thrills had a limited release in cinemas and now hastily finds its way onto disc. It found it’s way onto the recommend list by Filmwerk for it’s UK debut at FrightFest last year, earned a five star review on the theatrical release and gets no less here. This is one that has great value in the rewatch – even if to just pick up on cleverly scripted lines early on in the film that pay of later on.