If you are going to see one film this year, make it Cheap Thrills. You won’t be disappointed.

Cheap Thrills kicks in the door and takes the whole room (and its contents) out for a car ride, through the back roads, the dirt roads, with the lights off and the pedal floored. As soon as I saw a trailer for this film, I knew I had to see it, and knew I would not be disappointed. I wasn’t. Isn’t it great when you’re right? Might not happen often, but when it does…

So, what’s it all about?

Well, dear reader, the premise for the film is simple: What would you do for money? How far would you go to pay rent and bring up baby? Noam Chomsky has tried in vain to give a critique of capitalism that is as brief, comic, clever, and as memorable as Cheap Thrills. Now instead of giving his endless lectures, he should shut up and screen Cheap Thrills.

Cheap Thrills was written by schlock actor Trent Haaga and his writing partner David Chirchirillo, who together have produced a lean, taut, brilliant script, which is as edge-of-the-seat thrilling, as it is darkly comic.

First time director, E. L. Katz has skillfully blended this mix of horror and comedy to create powerful iconic film that is undoubtedly destined to become one the best cult films of the decade. Indeed, Katz’s handling of the material suggests a talent to watch.

But it’s not just the script and the director that are key, it’s the tight band of actors who make Cheap Thrills come to life in a disturbingly visceral and unforgettable way.

The film centers around Craig (Pat Healy), the aspirant middle class family man who finds himself out of a job, out of money and with imminent foreclosure on the apartment he shares with his wife and baby. Craig meets up with an old high school friend, the low-life proletarian Vince (Ethan Embry), who offers to help Craig by getting him drunk.

This is is when Craig and Vince meet a the uber rich couple, Colin and Violet (David Koechner and Sara Paxton) who celebrate a birthday by betting hard cash on whether Craig or Vince will be able to carry out small tasks. At first these tasks appear rather easy to do, which makes Craig think he has found a way to solve his money problems…

Ms. Paxton (The Innkeepers, The Last House on the Left)  and Mr. Koechner (yes, him from The Office and Anchorman) give a masterclass in menacing, subtle, manipulative behavior. These are two characters you do not want to meet on a bright day. Ethan Embry shows he is a tremendously gifted actor who brings a magnetic, vital force to Vince that makes his character bounce out of the screen.

But it’s Pat Healy that the film hangs on, and it is his subtle, disturbing and utterly brilliant performance takes the audience on one hell of a ride.

“I am interested in playing it for real,” Healy says when I talk to him about his performance in Cheap Thrills. “And committing to it, and showing something that people haven’t seen before and showing myself that too.”

“I think that I am really aware that there’s so much acting now that’s like ‘Well, we know what the scene is, and it’s written that way, and here’s the performance you expect the actor to give.’ That’s fine, that gets the job done, but there’s nothing really interesting or surprising about that, and I’m not really interested in that.”

In case you missed it, Healy made an indelible impression last year with his twisted psycho Officer Daniels in Craig Zobel’s film Compliance. But it wasn’t this, but an earlier collaboration with Zobel The Great World of Sound, that made Evan Katz think Healy was perfect for the role of Craig in Cheap Thrills

“He thought that I was a good ‘Every Man’ having seen me in other films. I don’t think that he necessarily knew I could go to the depths that I go to in this film.”

And Healy does go to some depths, but he saw it as “A unique opportunity to play someone form A-to-Z, someone who goes from zero to a thousand in short period of time. That is really appealing to me.” This was how Healy started out in Chicago theater making his “bread-and-butter” doing “really intense work.”

Cheap Thrills was filmed over fourteen days, and as most of the action occurs in one room (either a bar or an apartment) it meant that all four actors went through an intense and emotionally and physically exhausting time.
 

 
Dangerous Minds: What was your preparation for the role of Craig?

Pat Healy: “I did a lot of physical preparation because I knew it was a fourteen day shoot, a very short shoot, and it was coming up a month after I got cast, so I had to be really physically prepared.

“You make sure you are physically and emotionally and mentally sound, so that you know that every day you can go bananas without hurting yourself.

“When I act, I do all this preparation and know the script, and know the character, and do research for what it’s worth, and a lot of day-dreaming. Then you go up on a day when you have these moments that will be there, you just have to trust that you’re experienced enough and that the director has the confidence in you that you will do it, and you just summon it up somehow.

“For me, an actor plays the reality of the situation. And if you play the truth or the reality of the situation in every scene it will work, then it will be funny it’s meant to be funny and scary when it needs to be scary.”

Pat’s character goes through a long journey into the dark of night, and it’s difficult to discuss the film without giving to much away. All you need know is that Mr. Healy mines deep to bring forth Craig’s character, and he delivers a performance of quality that is rarely seen on screen. To do this he used elements form his own experience.

Pat Healy: “I come from a long history with psychoanalysis, I have been in psychoanalysis for many years, and I certainly understand the person that I was before I started psychoanalysis to the person I am now, and it has a lot to do with person you set yourself up to be in the world, you know the face we show to the world, and the one we show to ourselves, and knowing that there’s a lot of anger, a lot of simmering tension builds over many years of holding that inside, and it really only takes a few well placed sharp kicks for it to explode. And I had a really grasp on that. So, it was about knowing that at the beginning that person, that character had who he is at the end inside him.

“I had the good fortune of shooting the film mostly in sequence, at least all the stuff in the house. I shot the stuff with my wife at the beginning, so I knew what I was like and who I was at the beginning of this film, and knew who I was at the end of this film. I knew where I started and where I had to get to. That made it, with having the script as a guideline, that made it, I wouldn’t say easy, it was difficult to do, but it definitely had certain goalposts that I knew I needed to hit every day in order to be that person.”
 

 
DM: Your relationship with Ethan Embry in the film is pivotal, how did you get on with each other? And how did you develop your relationship?

Pat Healy: “The truth of the matter is, we didn’t know each other, we didn’t know we would be able to develop this relationship, but the script was good, the director Evan Katz trusted both of us that we were right for the part, and it happened we were. There was something about the two of us that got under each other’s skin that worked really well.

“We’re different enough people to be able to rub up against each other in the wrong way, given the right circumstances. [Laughs]

“I was aware of his work, and we met briefly and had a dinner together a few days before we started filming. I liked him, he is a really charming guy, but he’s very rough on the edges, as you can see, or at least, so I thought, that was the person I knew shooting the film.

“In our real life relationship, we became very antagonistic to each other—I don’t know how it happened, we’re not really quite sure, we can discuss it now, in the light of day, and we’re certainly friends. I think in that kind of situation, in that room, things quickly degenerating on-and-off, while the cameras are rolling and when they’re not, and it’s very hot and you sort of have to go at each other, and we certainly went a each other and hurt each other both emotionally and physically.

“As far as the background of the characters go, I don’t know what Ethan does, but I try to focus on what’s happening in the present. You think about what’s happened in the past, but my idea is that if you play the present right the audience will see the history of the character. If the relationship seems real, a comfortability there, or in this case, an uncomfortability, then there is the idea that these characters have a past, and are obviously very different people.

“At the beginning of the film, we go through this thing that colors what we go through together—whatever has gone wrong in their past and has caused them not to be friends anymore, or at least not to spend time together anymore, becomes abundantly clear through the course of the movie. In one scene in particular (one of the more quiet scenes), we have this conversation, it’s not exactly what happened, but is roughly what went down between the two of us, there was some sort of falling out, some sort of betrayal. I mean it’s written really well, and I think, again because we were shooting sequence, we had so much to work with, and in that scene becomes a dramatic scene for me, and it was nice to be able to play the quiet scene where we sort of say to each other the things we want to say to each other.

“Again, that’s something I’ve been holding inside me and he’s been holding inside him for many years too, and it just sort of explodes in a more quiet way.”

DM: How did filming affect you?

Pat Healy: “I was drained. But there was something very cathartic about playing a part like that where you can let it all out. You can go home, and put it away and go to sleep at night. You get a great release.

“For example, one of the scenes, in the aftermath of a particularly violent scene that for me was some of the most difficult and challenging work I’ve had to do.”

DM: And how do you feel about that?

Pat Healy: “I think I know things about myself as a person. I feel more well adjusted a person having gone through it.

“It’s that big problem we all have is not really being true to ourselves. This allowed to unleash all these things inside me in a safe environment. I’m not going to go out and behave that way in the real world. In a safe environment getting that stuff out is very healthy.

“Yeah, I was drained and tired by the end of it. But I felt really good at what I had done.”
 

 
You’ve probably seen Pat Healy innumerable times on your TV screen, as his credit list reads like a Top TV Guide to the past twenty years. But the experience of acting in so many shows wasn’t giving Healy the exposure his talent deserves and “They weren’t launching pads for me.” He therefore started writing, which opened up a whole new world for him, and led his writing for the Gabriel Byrne series In Treatment.

Pat Healy: “What happened was I’ve been acting for a very long time, and I didn’t feel I was getting where I wanted to be with my career, because I had done a lot of little parts, which was to show up and do a little bit here and there, mostly for a day or two, mostly for television.

“With television there is not a lot of preparation time. It’s written very quickly, and you do it the next day. It’s not very satisfying, even though I was making a good living out of it.

“About eight years ago now, I had written a script that got attention form certain people and got me an agent, who got me other writing jobs. I decided to make this decision to not entirely retire from acting but to say, ‘I have enough money now that I don’t need to act and do all these TV shows.’”

Suddenly Healy was in demand not only as an actor but as a writer and he therefore able was able to pick and choose what roles he wanted to do. It also meant he could make original and dynamic movies like Cheap Thrills that offer stories and roles that mainstream cinema fails to offer.

Pat Healy: “I’m very much visible in these films and I’m finally getting to do the work I’ve always wanted to do, which is a role from beginning to end, in a certain depth of character, a lot of intense things, and I want to show the world, and the nice thing is that now I may have a bigger name from playing these smaller films because I could, because I could afford to play them.

“I love films. I’d like to write more, and maybe direct, and do all those things, because that’s what I love to do. Not for any egotistical reasons, I don’t need to satisfy that in myself anymore, if there was to be any one thing I had to do it would be to act—it’s very cathartic for me, and I get to be around people, where with writing I don’t. I’m alone in a room most of the time, and that’s not my preferred way of living.”

DM: What are you doing next?

Pat Healy: “I have a few small parts in bigger films, there’s a film called Draft Day with Kevin Costner that’s coming out in April. And I’ve a little bit in the Captain America: The Winter Soldier with Robert Redford. And I have another bit in a smaller film called Starry Eyes, and little things here and there.

“Scripts are now coming my way that are intended for me for the first time, it’s just about finding and connecting with the right one. I waited many, many years to get a script like Cheap Thrills that really demonstrates all of what I am capable of doing.

“And that’s what I am interested in doing: playing it for real, and committing to it, and showing something that people haven’t seen before and showing myself that too.”

Okay—that’s the interview, now go and see the film.

‘Cheap Thrills’ is in cinema now, and is available on VOD from Drafthouse