Thematically, Thirst Trap is the kind of film that’s right up my alley. Dedicated to the “lost souls of Hollywood”, the film is a low-key thriller in which a failing actress, now a cam-girl, finds herself the target of a sinister stalker who has designs to murder her once the two finally meet. In terms of execution, however, Thirst Trap is a film that says the right things about the trappings of modern-day sex work but is so blunt in its message that it lacks any penetration. Film critic Stephanie Malone’s positive review of the film states that there aren’t enough films that refuse to demonise sex workers, and that films which tackle the world of online sex workers are rare. While it’s true that there isn’t a truckload of such films, the ones that concern online sex work, or have tangential themes, are executed far more substantially.
Thirst Trap begins like a character piece. Grace Gordon plays Riley Ann, who addresses the audience head-on, breaking the fourth wall, detailing how she operates. Due to her struggles finding acting work, Riley Ann turns to camming to pay bills. She happily obtains the honest bucks from her male followers and fans. Riley's efforts to find acting jobs are highlighted in scenes with dismissive female movie executives. Her fight to maintain a sense of balance in her work life gets lost as the film breaks off into a more conventional thriller with Riley trying to expose her anonymous stalker who watches her every move.
While films with online sex work as the focus are perhaps not of the highest volume, that’s not to say there haven’t been entries. Numa Perrier’s Jezebel (2019) covers much of the same ground Thirst Trap touches on. However, Perrier's film uses themes of race and class to give its narrative more sensitivity. Jezebel may not be a genre piece, but it utilises the same subject matter with more earnestness, providing a richer viewing experience than Thirst Trap. King Kelly (2012) has a fame hungry teen Kelly webcamming and filming the extreme events of her life to earn c, while the chaos of her choices explodes around her. King Kelly is not a film for everyone; however, Andrew Neel's film becomes a poignant character piece once it cuts through its anarchy. However, its frantic, filmed-on-a-phone style is the perfect foil for Kelly’s fourth-wall breaking. The chaos the film inhabits quickly ensnares a viewer while also highlighting its protagonist’s troubled friendship and family dynamics. 2020s’ Sweat may not be explicitly about sex work; it accurately nails down the performative nature of social media as well as its under-researched dangers. The psychological thriller Cam (2018), mentioned by Malone in her Thirst Trap piece, is perhaps the feature which gets to grips with the issue of identity and consent around sex work. Isa Mazzei's tac-sharp script and Madeline Brewer’s kinetic performance work well in showing female intimacy and identity being dismantled via big tech and social media. It also highlights the grind of today’s sex work: a relentless world of hyper-competitiveness and continuous one-upmanship, which gambles high reward on a fragile foundation.
Thirst Trap wishes to be as effective as other films that have women confined within the world of modern sex work. However, director Chantal Massuh only skims the surface of the industry. While the film should be commended for its grassroots budget (with a chunk of the finance stemming from Massuh’s own cam girl work), Thirst Trap would benefit from a stronger screenplay and deeper characterisation. Massuh is smart enough not to leave Gordon’s Riley hanging out to dry as a piece of female titillation for male viewers to gorp at. Even when Riley parades around in lingerie and swimsuits, there's enough distance between audience and lead to never feel leery or exploitative.
That said, Thirst Trap never feels strong enough in its conviction. It’s a film that name-checks the male gaze in the same way many on social media have picked up therapy speak. While the film never centres men, Massuh never really gets to grips with anything challenging to say about their supposed omnipresence. A short outdoor sequence has Riley observing a sex worker being abused by her pimp. However, the fact that the aggressor is a woman feels counterintuitive and lacks the contrast to modern cam girls who can often work independently from such men. A later scene has Renee, a stripper friend of Riley's, stay over to escape her current man troubles. The interaction between the two before Riley swiftly convinces Renee into a duo cam role is annoyingly rote. They sigh, tut and eye roll about men, but what is about the problematic men they encounter provides no real provocation. One could see both scenes mentioned being far more effective in other features, with a director like Sean Baker springing to mind. Massuh hints at a more provocative picture, with scenes of Riley fighting the validation that online clout brings, yet it never hits as hard as in the likes of Sweat or Cam. It doesn’t help that the film’s antagonist, as despicable as he soon becomes, isn’t particularly scary. The film never makes him the suffocating personification of the men Riley works to turn on.
“I always feel disposable in this town”, an angst-ridden Riley explains, and while an obvious statement, it’s a very truthful one. The online world is a cruel and merciless beast, and Thirst Trap shows the grimness of the web melding with real life a couple of times. However, the sense of conviction seen in other examples never comes to fruition. The churn of online sex work is never truly established, with Thirst Trap never really highlighting the toll that such a line of work can take. Massuh knows the uncompromising nature of this life. The low budget has Thirst Trap constrained to one apartment block. Whether consciously or not, this is a strong decision, as it exposes one of the biggest symptoms of working from home: the inability to unplug. But despite this, Thirst Trap never really becomes the struggle that it suggests. Massuh does well not to glamourise a difficult and often misunderstood job, but she never makes it as acutely unsettling as the few other examples in its wheelhouse either.
Thirst Trap is available to via Prime Video and Tubi
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