Incannerax
What a waste of my time!!!
MamaGravity
good back-story, and good acting
ChicDragon
It's a mild crowd pleaser for people who are exhausted by blockbusters.
Stephan Hammond
It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,
brasco-63139
All I can say is WOW! I was flipping through Amazon Prime one night trying to find something to watch, and I came across this little gem. I had no idea what it was about, but after reading the description we decided to give it a try. Boy am I happy that we did. It starts out a little slow, but when the action starts, it explodes. To watch these two old friends do wild, crazy, and sometimes unspeakable things for money is very entertaining. You have never seen this side of Rusty when he was a Griswold. I'm not to give long reviews, mainly because I never want to give away the essence of the movie, but this is one dark comedy that you have to see.
GUENOT PHILIPPE
It is not another remake of the movie from Thailand, 13 SINS, which has already been made in USA. The topic is the same, yes, but this film is a rather efficient rip-off, with less action and bloody sequences, but a lot more realistic and far far more disturbing, because of the closeness to reality. It's definitely not a comedy, even a black comedy, but a real drama. Not crime, but a fair insane drama, not for all audiences. Do not watch it with friends whilst eating pop corn, because this film deserves far more than this. This is not a common Saturday night horror film. The beginning is long to glue you, that would be the only flaw of this remarkable feature.
MrGKB
...this debut feature from auteur E. L. Katz packs a solid punch to the head, along with a few kicks to the groin. Couched in metaphors of class warfare and sexual politics, "Cheap Thrills" is essentially an age-old tale about the consequences of dealing with the Devil or rubbing the wrong lamp. Be careful what you wish for, etc. The tight, tense script provides all that's necessary for a powerhouse ensemble to run with, and run they do: Pat "Compliance" Healy tops a rich trifecta of genre appearances along with "Starry Eyes," Ethan "Dragnet" Embry tears it up as Healy's equally down on his luck friend, while David "Anchorman" Koechner and Sara "The Last House on the Left" Paxton wickedly enjoy bacchanalian and sybaritic excess as the aforementioned pair's demonic one-percenter antagonists. It may have been a cheap film, but it looks and feels better than ones with ten times the budget. Kudos to the production team top to bottom. Too bad the film was (apparently) poorly marketed; hopefully it will redeem itself on video. Recommended if you're into downbeat thrillers.
Argemaluco
Cheap Thrills is an excellent film with brilliant performances, solid direction and a clever screenplay which brings a potent message about human condition, combined with such black humor that it's difficult for us to determine whether we have to laugh or cry at the display of sadism and perversion portrayed. I generally don't like "home invasion" films, in which a group of thugs tortures innocent people without a reason. Fortunately, Cheap Thrills isn't one of those movies; or it might be, but inverting the roles of heroes and villains. Instead of being invaders, the friends Craig and Vince let themselves be conducted to Colin's mansion, where the brutality of the "gambles" is incremented to inhuman levels. And as spectators/accomplices, we witness the domestic drama developed under the guise of a game with a combination of fascination and repulsion. Cheap Thrills plunges us into the characters' mental manipulation, leaving us with the question: "What would we do in their place?". I guess that every person will have to carry with the weight of his/her answer. Regarding the less controversial aspects of the film, director E.L. Katz could perfectly achieve an atmosphere of anguish and suspense without employing any tiring stylish tricks which infest many modern thrillers. And despite being quite a short film, there's enough narrative expertise to efficiently portray the main characters' nature, something which brings credibility to the most extreme scenes. The actors make an excellent work in their roles, highlighting David Koechner, who manages to bring a simultaneously affable and dangerous attitude to his character, and Sara Paxton, who doesn't need too many words to transmit the complexity and nuances of her character. In conclusion, Cheap Thrills is a brilliant thriller, and it definitely deserves an enthusiastic recommendation, mainly because of its audacity and expertise to keep us fascinated and very entertained with such a demoralizing and pessimistic story.