Cheap Thrills

First-time filmmaker Katz effectively sets relatable problems as the catalyst to the story before the absurd takes over.

Screenwriters David Chirchirillo and Trent Haaga pose a simple question – how much will a person degrade himself to make ends meet? -- but it...

The film would be nasty if it weren’t clever (and sometimes horribly funny).

You should watch it as a twisted comedy. Those who do will be rewarded, especially by the film’s outlandish final image.

Dark, deeply disturbing and occasionally comic, Cheap Thrills puts a contemporary spin on the cinematic version of dare, pitting a mysterious...

Exceptionally entertaining and effective thanks to quality characters and a well-calculated build that justify the gore.

It’s a thought-provoking ride, particularly in a post-financial crisis world where a combination of desperation and temptation can...

Let’s just say it takes a dim view of human nature that seems well supported by the evidence, and that if you have an appetite for fatal...

The simple, even sometimes simplistic script is helped a lot by its cast.

This is not a movie for everybody, but that assessment is not exactly intended as a thumbs down. Alarming thrills are guaranteed.

The script is smarter than the premise sounds, with writers David Chirchirillo and Trent Haaga dispensing enough information to make victims both s...

The film-makers' undisguised glee in the revolting catalogue of horrors is a delight to behold, and the sense of naked misanthropy is queasily...

Cheap Thrills seriousness is cloaked in a darkly hilarious game of frat-guy oneupmanship. It’s about the things bros are capable of.

"Cheap Thrills" is a movie that Rod Serling would have loved.

One of the most involving works of cinematic misanthropy in years.

E L Katz’s film delivers exactly what the title promises. It is a very bloody, very violent fairground ride of a movie that ratchet...

For genre fans, Katz’s film will go down as a punchy and absorbing diversion, but it’s also an offer you can refuse to believe.&nb...

Ahead of its satiric aims, Cheap Thrills ultimately delivers its titular promise again and again.

Cheap Thrills is a thoroughly nasty piece of work, which doubtless will be the strongest selling point for this worst-case scenario about stea...

You can take the result as either smart satire or sick schlock – frankly, it works on both scores.

To describe them would diminish their impact, but there are several occasions where it is tough to keep looking at the screen. Yet, thanks to the c...

Gird your stomach for Cheap Thrills, a bloody but enjoyably ironic horror which enters that queasy zone where Michael Haneke’s Funny Games me...

If the way things wind up for Craig and Vince is perhaps inevitable, how they get there is not. As for the movie’s audacious final shot, it&r...

Erich von Stroheim might have made the definitive film about human swinishness way back in 1924 -- sorry, Gordon Gekko – but Cheap Thrill...

A fair amount of twisted fun, thanks mostly to a surprisingly, effectively low-key turn by Koechner as the game’s emcee.

A bluesy drinking session evolves into messy violence for kicks in this nifty debut feature from E L Katz.

If Cheap Thrills ultimately does carry us along, it’s due largely to Healy’s performance and presence.

The "worst day of your life" premise is a well-worn one … but seldom has it plumbed the depths of desperation and sadism the way Cheap Thrills...