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Stars: Emile Hirsch, Stephen Dorff, Gigi Zumbado
Director: 
Ryûhei Kitamura
Distributor: 101 Films

“I save people’s lives.”

The Price We Pay opens with a considerably eerie and technically superb pre-title sequence that sees a call girl kicked out at a gas station and later abducted in an abrupt manner from outside a cubicle toilet. Immediately, a creepy and somewhat vicious vibe is laid out. 

Following the titles, a feeling where the film truly begins, Grace (Gigi Zumbado) finds herself in a desperate situation in the backroom of a pawn shop run by a total sleazeball. Whilst present in the back, a botched armed robbery takes place at the front of the house, orchestrated by veteran Stephen Dorff (Cody) alongside brothers Alex and Shane (Emile Hirsch and Tanner Zagarino respectively). Unable to escape, Grace becomes a low-key hostage during the getaway process, where the crew ultimately end up at a remote farmhouse, occupied only by a young boy (Danny, Tyler Sanders) before his mysterious grandpa returns home… 

As ever with these repetitive, yet questionable locations in these kinds of films, the farmhouse entails more horrors and crimes that any crook could ever imagine. There are reasons not to go into the basement. When Grandpa (Vernon Wells of all people) and his giant daughter return home, Cody, Alex, Shane and even Grace feel the full brunt of their impurities – and must be opened up and punished. 

The Price We Pay presents a bottom shelf attempt of a complete tone and context shift change halfway through the film, similar to that of From Dusk Till Dawn, but nowhere as good. From a low-key crime film, we’re now presented with a horror house, semi-torture spectacle. Some of the ideas present from Vernon Wells’ character are both delusional and grotesque. Perfect for horror. For what can occasionally stretch to being borderline comically graphic, the gore on show is an excellent hybrid of practical and digital effects. Gruesome and gross, but funny, too. 

Ultimately, The Price We Pay is a spectacle of chaos for characters that we care not about. Dorff’s Cody is the most human of the crooks, but still a crook. Grace just happens to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. In writer-director Ryûhei Kitamura’s Texas Chainsaw Massacre knock-off, chaos and carnage take a huge precedence over character.

The Price We Pay is out now on digital. Many thanks to Aim Publicity and 101 Films for the pleasure of this film.

2.5 Stars

Dom.

For John.

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This article’s featured image: By Source, 101 Films, Fair Use