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Bleak new cult comedy ‘Cheap Thrills’: What doesn’t kill you makes you richer
03.24.2014
08:06 pm
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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.
 
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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.”

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

 
More cheap thrills from Pat Healy, after the jump…

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Posted by Paul Gallagher
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03.24.2014
08:06 pm
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