Remy – Cheap Thrills
This film is on the other extreme of Only Lovers Left Alive. If that is the horror film you sit with to think deeply and revel at the pacing and visuals, Cheap Thrills is the movie you could watch with the volume off and still fully understand. It’s not cerebral, and it’s not slow-paced. Cheap Thrills is that six dollar bottle of vodka you want to drink even though you know it might make you sick. Thing is, that makes it no less entertaining than the above mentioned movie – it’s just entertaining in an entirely different way.
Cheap Thrills is about a man named Craig who finds himself in a bit of a quandary. His wife is preggers, he just lost his job and they are about to be evicted. Craig runs into an old friend at a bar, and they start catching up. At one point, they are approached by a couple, who seem intent on having them do increasingly bizarre (and illegal and amoral) things for more and more cash. The kicker is, these two dudes REALLY need the cash. So the bets get more and more bizarre and twisted as the night rages on and more and more liquor flows. Think torture porn meets high stakes gambling and you have a good idea. Very much like a movie we have mentioned many times before, Would You Rather, Cheap Thrills shows us just how far some people would be willing to go to pay their bills.
Also, if some sociopathic couple ever tries to get you to jump through hoops for some cash, run in the other direction before things get as nasty as they do in this film.
Darkly comical, twisted, and even a bit gory at times, Cheap Thrills is a fun and sordid ride that all of us poor folks can relate to on some level.