MovieChat Forums > Cheap Thrills (2014) Discussion > Is this a new type of genre?

Is this a new type of genre?

posted 11 years ago by Swift_exit
11 replies | jump to latest

so far there has been I melt with you, Scenic route and now this one. I think all of these movies have similar themes.

[–] justin40580 11 years ago

Explain. I've seen scenic route but what exactly do you mean?

[–] Swift_exit 11 years ago

They are about friendship but then turn into survival movies. Another example would be Deliverance.

[–] justin40580 11 years ago

Oh I see. Maybe you meant to ask if this is a new trend with movies then? Because "Deliverance" is an older example.

[–] eps_leon 11 years ago

This movie is never about survival. At no point in the movie are their lives at risk.

[–] npanou 11 years ago

You know, other than at the end.....

[–] eps_leon 11 years ago

They would have had to have known their lives were in danger for it to be about survival. As it is established early on that there is no intention for their hosts to kill them, they had no reason to suspect their lives were being threatened.

Unless you want to argue semantics and suggest that it's about survival because they were trying to earn money to sustain/improve their quality of life.

The movie is simply a 'shock' film. It seems to be trying to make some sort of point though. How people are not always good or bad, but victims of their circumstances, or that the average man is simply a puppet for the people that control the wealth.

[–] The-ManWithNoName 11 years ago

It's hard to fight for your life when you don't know it's in danger.

[–] cynmoss 11 years ago

This movie has more in common with "Would you Rather?" than Scenic Route IMHO.

[–] joem420 11 years ago

nope....this kind of genre has been around for decades...they are called "B movies"..take a look at movies form the 70's and you will find plenty of movies like this,

[–] einar_jonsson 10 years ago

I'm curious if there's a resurgence in interest, though, in how a number of horror film plots all center on people paid to play games of violence. Many of them demonstrate to the extreme, so much as to render literal, the increased visibility of class inequality and wealth disparities. Examples: 13 Sins (2014), which is based on Beloved 13 (2006); Would You Rather? (2013); The Purge: Anarchy (2014). An older example is Brett Easton Ellis's novel American Psycho (1991), which was made into film in 2000.

I'm not trying to argue it's necessarily "new", but rather that there is an increased desire to produce variations of these similar plots and, oppositely, a desire to view them. That is, there is a market for these topics being depicted. It links, possibly, to reality televisual culture, but instead focuses on literalizing the violence we otherwise peg as "competition." Thoughts on this?

[–] RoadSideAssistance 9 years ago

It's already a genre. It's dark comedy. Very Bad Things was one of the first modern films to do this and IMO was a better film. That said, I loved Cheap Thrills.