On MetaCritic, Funny Games received seven ratings of 80 or higher (which is really good), and six ratings of 20 or lower (really bad). It’s very rare to see critics as polarized as they were about German writer/director Michael Haneke’s remake of his own 1998 film by the same name. Now, what kind of movie could split critics into such distinctly different camps? How about an incredibly well crafted and suspenseful horror film with brutal violence and an almost unbearably pessimistic message about our society?
Funny Games centers on a young family heading to their vacation home for a quiet week away. Shortly after they arrive a young man (Brady Corbet) shows up at their door claiming that he was sent by the neighbors to borrow a few eggs. What starts out as merely an awkward interaction quickly becomes something much more sinister when the young man’s companion (Michael Pitt) arrives. The pair soon informs the family that they will be participating in a bet, and that their participation isn’t up for debate. The terms of the bet are simple; the young men bet that the family will be dead by 9 a.m. the next day. The family, of course, must bet that they will be alive.
What’s most disturbing about the mayhem that follows isn’t gore (there really isn’t much of that at all). No, what will stick with you after watching this film is the cold calmness with which the two assailants carry out the night’s festivities. They very rarely seem to ever lose their airtight grip on the situation. We’re never given a real reason for why they’re doing this, and that’s partly why Funny Games is so difficult for some people to stomach.
Outside of the moral criticisms Haneke is trying to make of our society, this film is a whole lot like Bryan Bertino’s 2008 film, The Strangers. What I mean is that both films primarily serve as an exercise in creating and sustaining suspense. In both cases, it won’t take long before you’ll have a pretty clear picture of the plot’s final outcome, but that doesn’t make them any less effective. The tone of both works lets you know that nothing positive could come out of these situations and it is simply something the viewer must accept. Thankfully, another similarity is that both films are tremendously successful at creating that suspense and sense of impending dread that they set out to. In Funny Games, Haneke accomplishes this by using a lot of long, sustained shots. You often feel certain something is about to happen, but Haneke doesn’t always follow through on those expectations, which will just leave you feeling even more antsy.
While the direction is fabulous, Funny Games biggest strengths are the performances delivered by almost every member of the cast. I can’t say enough about how perfect the choices of Pitt and Corbet were. Pitt especially is fantastic. He is so eerily self-assured that everything he does on screen is frightening. When he occasionally breaks the fourth wall and addresses the audience directly it is truly chilling. On the other team, Tim Roth (the husband) and Naomi Watts (his wife) are both excellent as well.
While I really enjoyed Funny Games, it certainly isn’t for everyone. It is unflinchingly dark and depressing throughout. Haneke offers a criticism of American audiences’ thirst for violence in a way that may be difficult for some viewers to take. On the other hand, I found the way he goes about delivering his criticism to be intriguing, and the story kept me on the edge of my seat from start to finish. If you like horror movies or suspense driven thrillers, then you NEED to see this film. It’s definitely one of 2008’s best in the genre.
Related posts:
sick movie. Children murdered in cold blood…never entertaining. I’m all for twisted movies and characters, but this is over the top…especially if you have kids of your own.
This is the worst movie ever. Funny Games should never have been made into a film. Instead it should have been adopted as a play. Everything about this movie would have been less annoying as a theatrical piece. The director could have kept his bland white backgrounds, long boring dialogue, ridiculous self satisfied social cometary, terrible acting and helpless characters on stage, to be studied by arrogant drama students.
This film throws away all conventions of the horror genre that would otherwise create pace, suspense and emotion. It was as if the director was saying “I have an opportunity here to make this scene incredibly powerful but why would I do that? To please a morally retarded US Audience? No, I am an artsy European. Let me see how many people can endure this irrelevant 10 min shot of a door knob… HAHA… I am Ironic…”
Funny Games is poop…
Must admit this movie did distburb me. I had the luxury of watching it at home so I did change channels for a few minutes when it got too much for me. This is for die hard crime/thriller fans only.I did get something positive out of this movie. Had the couple followed their instincts this may have turned out differently - but then we wouldn’t have the movie. To me, this highlighted how you never let a stranger in your home, and if it doesn’t feel right, it isn’t. I didn’t mind the rewind scene at all - actually it came as a relief as it snapped me out of the terrible trance I was in and reminded me I was watching a movie, not living a nightmare. Incredible acting, incredible movie - but not for the faint hearted.
TERRIBLE MOVIE, SICK SICK SICK director. If anything like this plot happens to anyone he should be held responsible. For him to come up with a movie like this means he is a very demented person. I will NEVER EVER recommend this to ANYONE. He should consider a new career path because besides the horrible ending, the movie in general was terrible.
I hate stupid movies like this. Not just because they have a unideal ending but because they are sooo not worth the rave. Everyone says, oh, their so thought-provocking, terrifiying, distubring. THEY R NOT. This is just like the movie paranormal activity in the sense that it was really really boring with off camera action that is supposed to scare you because of the “unknown”. BULLSHIT.It is super annoying to sit there and watch a ten minute scene of nothing. What is terrible about this movie is that its supposed message is simply ridiculous. They say oh its supposed to prove how desensitized to violence people are and how we want to see violent scenes. No, not true. It is just annoying when you can’t see what is happeneing or if nothing at all is happening. It doesn’t matter if someone is being punched or some is cooking food, it detracts from a film when the film is not in sight of the viewers. All I can say is what the hell, anyone who saw this shit will have the same thoughts. What really pissed me off is that besides the dad being hurt, the little kid and the mom were ok in the beginning. Those dumbass killers had golf clubs. They really could have not overtaken them at all, or tried? I mean when the kid went to get food for that tubby bitch he could have got a knife and threw it at him, or anything. And the wife just leaves the house after they left without some sort of weapon? She couldn’t have brought a golf club just in case? I just don’t find this movie practical because the characters did not take advantage of the time they had or didn’t do anything. They were just like dahhh, what? This movie makes people out to be stupid. At least in the movie, “the strangers” things were actually happeneing. There wasn’t on screen violence, but it was more satisfying because you could actually see what was happening, and things were happeing. The ending blowed just like the rest of the movie.
This movie makes me sick because it sends a message that people are dumbasses and incapable of protecting themselves when creepers with golf clubs come in to their house. And it makes it seem like people are in love with violence, when in fact they just want to know whats going on.
Disgusting
You’re right ppl, this movie is sick.
It didnt had a good ending at all! But i can say that the actors ( those two murderes) can act very well. But that the child died so coldly is not funny. And that when the woman shooted at one and then with a remote control it was like 3 minutes ago again!
Julie got it totally right. Never really saw where he got hit in the leg in the beginning, so I thought the might have just tripped him with the club. I hope this helps to end Naomi Watts’ career for producing this horrible movie. If King Kong has helped already.
I have to say, this movie was pretty disturbing, but I couldnt seem to stop watching it. The rewind scene REALLY pissed me off. I understand that the guy broke the realistic element of the film occasionally by speaking to the audience, but a rewind scene? What the fuck is this waynes world?
This is one of the most god awful pieces of crap i’ve ever seen. I actually enjoyed the way that the voilence wasn’t shown, i think there is too much gratuitous voilence in movies these days. But this movie was fucking boring as hell. It’s nothing like “The strangers”, that actually had stuff to keep the audience awake. The biggest problem with this movie was that the couple didn’t do shit to protect themselves. It’s funny too me that the little boy put up the most fight, followed by the wife, and the dickless husband just sat there the whole time because he had a bruise on his leg. I don’t know what people are like in Europe, but here in America, people aren’t pussys. I don’t know a single couple, young or old, athletic or not, that would let that happen. The author of this review stated that the assailants had an “airtight grip” on the situation. Are you fucking kidding me? the little bitch with the golf club walked out of the room, and the coupl did nothing! the little bitch husband tried to take the tape off his wifes hands so she could defend him when he should have been limping over to the vase so he could throw it at the dude. Are people in Europe pussies or something? And then the grand finale of the whole retarded mess came when something good happened, and when I say good, i mean something realistic, something engaging, and something that people can relate to, the director with his head up his ass decides to erase it. Terrible, retarded movie, please director, whoever you are, whoever thought this was a good idea, please, please never contribute anything to any kind of media ever again. Like if you could just find a cave to live in for the rest of your pointless life, that’d be just great. If you’d rather not do that then how bout you send me that magical remote so i can get those two hours of my life back.
iLuvvdd it Cuz it Wass Verryyyyyy Disturbingg!!(:Butt The onlyy Part iHated Was Whenn He Rewindded itt!
iT Pissedd Mee Off!Lykk whyy Wouldd Thee Producer Take the Realismm Outt Off The MoviE!!!!Damnn Peoplee…..(:jK
Well, I’ll never get those two hours of my life back. I could have tolerated it until they put in a scene where they rewinded it. How f-ing stupid. I think it would have been way more interesting to watch it continue to play out after she shot the one guy. My god let them have something. I do not recommend this to anyone.
wow. it would appear I’m one of the only people who actually thought this movie was pretty clever?
I love horrors and thrillers and i really enjoyed the film. Fair enough, the boy dying wasn’t very pleasant, but you didnt actually see it happen, and there is so much worse in more mainstream films nowadays.
I think the two guy actors were brilliant, and I loved the whole ’speaking to the audience’ thing.
Perhaps the reason that people don’t like this film is because it COULD happen. And there isnt a ‘happy ending’. Newsflash people, not all stories have a happy ending, especially in real life. And thriller / horror movies probably shouldn’t have happy endings anyway.
If you didnt want a film with violence in it (bla bla bla) why choose to watch a film which shows two blokes with bloody hands and a golf club on the cover?
Okay, so I just watched it. Everything about the movie was great, up until the climax. It ended the movie so abruptly. It was a good movie, like I said, but the ending was just really rushed. 7/10.
ok i just got from work, my girl was watching this, which seemed extremely interesting, it totally drew me in, I could deal with the kid dying, Im all for realistic horror films, but dont forget its still a movie in which we all like the good guy to somehow win even if their whole family was murdered, my problem with the movie was the stupid rewind scene, I mean CMON!!!!!!….if you gonna go as far you did to make this the most realist experience possible, why the hell would you even try to dilute it with such a stupid scene???…..after that i lost all interest for the movie and then the icing on the cake was Naomi Watts being pushed into the lake. THE END.
IM SORRY BUT THE REWIND SCENE COMPLETELY SCREWED THIS MOVIE.
terrible. I kept waiting for the cops to show up or something to happen. The dad had about 100 opportunities to just bash one of the murderers in the head with a heavy object but he didn’t? In real life, he would have tried at least 50 of those 100 times. Ok, and the rewind part was the GAYEST part of the whole movie. If the bad guy could just rewind to save his friend, why couldn’t the family? Eh? Thank you.
Don’t you all realize that the fact that you’re pissed off is EXACTLY the director’s intention? He actually said so in an interview that his intention was for people to get so pissed off that they’d leave the theatre. But it actually is realistic in a way (sans the rewind scenes and breaking of the fourth wall). Seriously, if a murderer actually came into your house, and was mentally and physically torturing you, they wouldn’t care that they shot a kid, they wouldn’t want you to know their intentions; they just want to kill you.