Movies

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 have to admit I didn't feel attracted either by the poster or the plot summary. Yet the experience was thrilling and full of surprises: the acting of the four protagonists is excellent and I enjoyed it all the way. Also, although the genre of psychological thriller is not my cup of tea, the director did a great job creating a disturbing atmosphere sustained by a very good script, good dialogues and deep human characters. The first work of Katz as a director is, in my opinion,a successful debut: the movie is filmed with great sensibility and the art in general is perfectly in tone with what we feel from the very beginning. Highly recommendable, no doubt.

CHEAP THRILLS (2013) ** Pat Healy, Ethan Embry, Sara Paxton, David Koechner, Amanda Fuller. Part-black comedy, part horror film about two hard-on-their-luck friends who bump into each other on a fortuitous night when they become friendly with an off-beat couple who engage them in a deadly betting game of one-upmanship that tests all matters of what is moral and when is enough enough. While David Chirchirillo & Trent Haaga clearly have seen their share of vintage anthology TV (i.e. "Alfred Hitchcock Presents…." & "Tales From The Crypt" where the plot line echoes an episode of each) the tension escalating flatlines no thanks to rather stilted direction by E.L. Katz despite a game cast and a few gnarly moments (but truly nothing 'horrific' or 'new').