Caught this movie during a bout of insomnia. This is one of the WORST movies I have ever invested time in watching.

Senseless, sick, and dredged on, needlessly. A TOTAL waste of time.

Tina - Thanks for your comment. Like I mentioned in the review, the critics were really split on the success of this film. Obviously you fall into the camp that thought it should have been rated in the 0-20 range. I can certainly understand the disdain from a moral perspective, but I think you have to admit that Haneke did a very good job generating suspense.

Disdain from a moral perspective?
I think there are ways of offering suspense w/o being morally repugnant. This movie offers a suggestion to normalizing behavior that shouldn’t be tollerated in today’s society, however thanks to this movie and others like it, are. DEMENTED!

I understand what you’re saying, but I don’t think that’s what Haneke was trying to do. I think he is critiquing the the way our society has grown to enjoy these types of brutal films. In the scenes where Michael Pitt’s character directly addresses the camera he’s clearly challenging the audience, making us question what we want from the plot and what that says about us (and our culture).

I have to wonder: Does making a movie like this, which is critical of our culture, wake us up to what we are becoming; or does it add to the problem? I was channel surfing when this came on. I never heard of this film, but I like both Watts and Roth, so I kept watching. It wasn’t long before I was spellbound. Every time I thought I knew what was going to happen, something else happened instead. I liked it, but wouldn’t recommend it to anyone whose movie tastes I wasn’t familiar with.

one part of the movie confused me, and i wondered why it was thrown in there—when ann grabs the gun and shoots tubby. but then (corbet) “rewinds” the scene with the remote control and the scene changes. it was a strange twist that didn’t seem to go with the movie as a whole. it was almost playful, and completely unrealistic. while the rest of the movie could concievably actually occur, the whole “remote control” scene strayed far from that. any thoughts on this? aside from that, i dug the movie, and found it addicting to watch. as furious as i got regarding the “wimp” factor of the parents (i felt like they could have done ’something’, but that’s just a plot issue) i still wanted to see where this movie was going to take me. i thought about it long after the tv was off, that’s for sure.

THe worst fucking movie i have ever seen. i wish they would have gave me the gun so i could have shot myself

I wouldn’t wish this on my worst enemy…..Well on second thought I hope they lose more brain cells than I did looking for any meaningfull message out of this. By all means, complete waste of time. I wish I had those two hours back in my life or better yet called someone I know and talked about anything. Which in the case of this film, a conversation about dogshit might be more eventful.

i don’t get the end where he uses a remote control to go back in time? that was random..

Pathetic excuse for a movie and a director. This twisted german director is one sick SOB. He wants to desperately believe this is an ART film. It’s nothing more than a fluff B-movie which would only appeal to future serial killers. The only message I took away from this crap, is if a stranger ever comes to my door to ask to borrow anything, I should put a bullet in his head to prevent evil things to come. Wasted two hours I’ll never get back.

This movie sucked ass, rewound and sucked ass again. I thoroughly agree with all previous negative reviews.

I agree..ya’ll muthafuckas…is funny…dont get me wrong the movie was savo…savage..with the calmness…i’ve never seen anything like it….but that rewound shit…nooo…they fuck’d me with that one…did he know it was coming then rewound it…or just a stupid ass germen thing they do in movies over there…idk…but i’d wipe my ass with the pages of that script from the scene in that movie….

To all the haters out there suck it. Best Horror movie in a longtime. I awesome acting and directing.
That movie was just more realistic than most people can stomach.

What a movie!!!! It’s about time the innocent don’t win in horror movies!!!!

Freaked out that people think like this… Yikes! Still confused about the rewind part at the end. Hmmm… What was that all about. I found myself changing the chanel often due to not being able to commit to watching what was going on in this movie but not being able to completely keep myslef from wanting to change it back to see what was going on. What happened to the little boy? I missed a lot of the movie due to being a little freaked…

Really bothered by this flick. On the coattails of the child being killed in Tracy, CA. And the reality doing what I do (Cop), I don’t know what to make of this. I am sickened by the outcome and I just venture to say this movie provides no benefit to anyone. It is not entertaining, it does build suspense but it kind of lets you down with all the typical movie BS like her being found by the killers after narrowly missing the vehicle that would save them and the son nearly getting away, and the cell phone almost working. The only sad reality I take from this is with the lack of importance given on human life nowadays, a film like this really serves no purpose. It didn’t make me think, it didn’t make me angry, it didn’t make me sad, it just made me wish I had never seen it.

I don’t believe this movie was a criticism against culture, as much as it was a nearly perfectly crafted sadistic poetry that played off high molarity as a perverse character trait. I personally think the whole movie was explained well they were rowing the boat. It was there they were speaking of our perceptions of reality and how it can feel like your in a black hole. I think it was deep abstract thought that created this movie. A venture into something inconceivable to the average thought process. I think only a purely intelligent mind could craft such an odd, uncommon thought into such a sick, twisted, and harsh underlying message that if I’m right even the author of this script never thought anyone would get. It’s a brilliantly well done movie with amazing acting abilities clashing effortlessly. Hard to stomach as it may be to some, I think to the true watcher it brings out the question of how we personally conceive and douses us in the fears of what if’s. Demented it is, but I think if you were to deconstruct what it is they said from the rowboat scene on forth you would indulge just off the brim of what the writer was trying to say. The acting just helped bring justice to it all.

It’s not a movie for everybody, I would say on average most people don’t think so deeply into the meaning of a movie. People base their opinions off of pre-programmed thoughts of their pasts and react accordingly. This movie shows the reactions of uncertainty and choice used in such a fearful way it makes me wonder who could ever think of such a movie.

Culture-shocker maybe, but this movie is a precise view I don’t think anybody but the author truly can be aware of. It’s abstract in the way it goes about trying to prove a point that may be hard to see, but is sculpted suspense-fully in a dark nerve-racking way.

Liking or disliking this movie, is a perfect example of how this movie plays its games. For if you say you like this movie others could either think your crazy for enjoying such a horrible act of violence being portrayed on film, or, on the other hand they could view similarly to you on the how the movie was made, and you both agree that it was well done. In the end either way, you had to make a choice, not only you but the person who made the choice causes a yes/no reaction of the other. It’s dim-lit deconstruction of a fear of choice laced through a fear of the unknown, yet for the cast the fear of a likely fate.

So you may have enjoyed the movie or not, but whose truly right or wrong. Society is a reliability on the reactions of a group of species interactions with others. Knowledge is built from the branching of reactions through a repetition in the outcomes of choice.

I would recommend this film to anybody who thinks highly abstract, or maybe thinks too much.

Definitely not a movie you would want any young child to watch. So don’t let your kids watch this one. I think someone who is well read & open minded will think this movie has something to prove & enjoy it. They may not understand exactly why though.

Or do they?

I “unfortunately” watched this movie. It was filled with empty segments that got very boring. It was like Haneke did not know what to fill those segments with, and was somewhat lazy in making this film.

this movie sucked balls

worst movie i have ever seen, possibly the worst ever produced. for some dumb ass reason someone thought that this movie sounded good and decided to produce it, too bad theat person has a sever case of down syndrom. wasted 2 hours of my life watching this bull shit.

This was a great movie, and I too see how it can be polarizing to a mainstream audience who may be expecting a more conventional thriller. I thought it was unique and worked in sending a message about an audience’s voyeurism for violence.

I have to say that I absolutely love horror movies. That feeling you get after watching one.. “is there someone in my closet?” and you quickly go lock your doors and check the windows. I was hoping when I watched this movie I would be frightened in some sense… instead I had two hours of a hidden snuff film. At no point did I feel anything remotely close to any of the decent horror/suspense films out there… instead I was left with a feeling of disgust. Almost as if it was written by a pissed off teenager. What really ruined this film for me was the remote scene. Even if the entire family had died some vengence would have been met which i’m sure the viewers would have been somewhat satisfied with. and poor useage of setting the stage.. the knife at the beginning was left on the boat… throughout the movie I was wondering how this would tie in, instead it was short lived… one must wonder why it was even setup in the first place. its a sick and twisted movie that moves beyond the moral backbone of most GOOD movies.. leave the kids out of it. anyone with half a brain can write a script about a man holding a family hostage and trying to figure out which one he was going to kill first. of course there is suspense, the center of our hearts is hope. you want them to live obviously. this movie seemingly controlled by rules went beyond its own rules and brought in the remote scene which i cant express enough MADE ABSOLUTELY NO SENSE!!!!! if anything I am grateful that I watched this movie.. now i know that i dont have to waste my time or money on any further movies written by this pathetic excuse for a script writer…

I really liked this movie is just like “The Strangers” I just think this family could’ve safe themselves if they were a lil smarter but oh well….so is there gonna be a second part to it because of the way it ended?

I agree with the innocent not winning in horror movies. That’s good. But just ADMIT it’s just another horror movie, do not try to glorify it by calling it ART. It is not about making fun of American audiences’ thirst of violence in movies. It is a RESPONSE and an INDULGENCE to that thirst. It is just disguised as a “different” kind of movie. But its just the same shit we see every day. Tarantino for example,now THAT’s a parody and a mockery of American audiences’ taste for blood and violence. This is an ordinary violent american horror movie. SUCKS

The movie kept me in suspense the entire time. Some people have posted that they have a hard time with the “rewind” portion of the movie, I don’t think they realize that they were just trying to show you what the viewer really wanted to see (the normal scene that would occur in any other movie). Instead of making it a dream sequence, they just made the scene flow throught the regular portion of the movie…until he grabs the remote. Watching the wife struggle to turn off the TV shows us how hard it is for us to turn off the TV when we can’t find the remote. It’s almost as if our hands and feet are tied when we can’t find it and it’s almost impossible for us to just turn it off at the set. Good Movie

I am in shock and awe that nobody here asked, “Why was this film, screenplay written?” If it was for social commentary, the german director shot in a direction few would need to look. Senseless murder occurs everyday, and with even more chilling circumstances. I watched this, and even began cheering and predicting the murders’ next course of action. But what am I supposed pull from this? Americans are selfish and like violence, so why not murder them with smile on my face? A true story has a major reason to be told; this movie never presents one. Oh, and about the german director remaking his own movie so soon, get some talent buddy because you don’t have the intelligence to get this one right! See Natural Born Killers for developing characters that people want to get to know…

Hmmm.. tough call. Good storylines… but the ending kept me kinda peeved… and disturbed. Not so sure How I feel. I never really get sucked into a movie emotional wise, but this left me feeling really awkward and worried.. about what? No clue …

It’s no suprise that the director of this sick film is german - from the same germany that created the Holocaust and poeple like hitler; I guess they still havn’t got it out of their system.

This movie was interesting. What I don’t understand is why in the begining when the Uncle went to the house and introduced him to the family that he didn’t attack him? Just made no sense. It would have been two on one and the dog was there. How doesn’t he not take that chance?

The movie was garbage. I definitly will not see another Haneke movie.

This is the EXTREMELY WORST WORST WORST MOVIE that I HAVEN”T seen it BEFORE. It makes me feel angry and angry and I think a human’s root is devil and nobody is simple for his/her behavior. It’s so obscure and criminal. But I think there might be ONLY ONE theme from the movie, which is don’t open the door to people even though you meet each other. If the people want to lend something from you, just tell them buy something by themselves and must not be kind to them! Finally, I think this movie is not good for innocent people.

um i read all these comments and i found all of them intresting, but bazzar, i mean a lot of this comments were like “this movie tells us about how we choose to watch violence” but honestly to me this movie was way tooo far out of what a suspenceful movie should be, i admit i lik,e how no one lives, but the movie ends ith to many questions unanswered and since it was so god awful nobody would see the part 2! the movie sucked ass all day, but the actors and actresses worked their asses of to make lemonade out of some damn sour lemons. so all applause to the actors and actresses and rotten tomatoes to the script

I get it that this film can make sense to say…upcoming film directors/writers but the majority that watch this film are just normal folks and frankly the film just sucked bad. I didnt see the beginning and caught just before the boy got away to only go next door to get caught and be brought back home. Then after he is shot the mom takes her time with a wet cell phone. UGH!!!She probably wasted a good 20 min. I would have been out of that house so fast and I wouldnt have just gone to neighbors houses, I would have ran and ran then looked for helped. This right here should tell everyone , dont belive strangers when they come to your door and always look for white gloves on there hands. This was a awful movie and Ill never watch it again. If this was to enlighten us to violence..we already know that and we didnt have to see a crappy movie to know it.

I find the movie fascinating. Simply because I’ve never seen anything like it, besides The Strangers (but even in that movie, someone lives). There was a sick, eerie feeling given from the killers’ demeanors. They were just… unsettling. I’m used to the “tear-your-heart-out-with-a-huge-knife” killer, you know? & What REALLY had me at the edge of my seat & yellin at my own TV was how naive & STUPID the family was. Any other wife, would’ve called her husband as soon as she suspected something wasn’t right (at the beginning of th movie). I felt that the victims could have acted more naturally and put up a fight (& not have been so WEAK!) I hated George for how he nonchalantly brushed his wife’s frustrations off. & the poor dog. The family should have known to heed their dog’s warnings. After watching it the third time, I concluded this: The writer/director really wanted to make a movie that Bothered the audience; made them search for a way to describe how they felt about the movie; mess w/ Our heads. It was VERY hard to watch the family’s head being played with a the beginning of the movie. Overall, I loved it because it’s a movie that sticks with you. & show’s you something you don’t see at all really.

[...] Peter and Paul from Funny Games - These teenage hooligans terrorize a vacationing family and even manage to break the fourth wall [...]

This movie sucked ass! I hated the long boring scenes.. I hated the rewind scene more than anything I have ever hated before… I really hated how they looked directly into the camera and talked to the audience. Just when you start to forget how much this movie sucked, the director would do something really stupid to disengage the audience. It looked like a high school film project where the students throw in really dumb scenes or elements “on the fly” because they think it would be cool.. when actually it makes the film turn into a corny, unintelligent, piece of shit film. DO NOT WATCH THIS MOVIE IF YOU HAVE NOT ALREADY!!!! IT SUCKS REALLY BAD!! I WILL NEVER WATCH ANOTHER MOVIE BY THIS DIRECTOR..

Good point UPALLNIGHT, I never thought about the scen where the wife turns off the TV.

This movie, for me, is like when I read literature. I hate the book while I’m reading it but once I’m done and I think about what it was trying to say I think it’s really cool.
This movie is complaining about the violence in the media and how desensitized people are to it now, I know its kinda obvious, but it has to be said. The point is the movie is supposed to make you uncomfortable, that’s why most of you don’t like it. The main reason it is so creepy and stands out is because we are never given a reason. I don’t know about you but I was expecting the main killer to look at the camera again, at the end and explain everything, but then it just ends! And we get this feeling that every thing would work out if we were given some sort of reason, like it wouldn’t be so unnerving, but the point that’s trying to be made is that it shouldn’t. Getting some justification shouldn’t make you feel better about what is happening.

The rewind scene actually made sense when I thought about it. We are seeing what we “should” see. If he hadn’t rewinded it would have been like countless other movies and you would have left the movie thinking something like: “Well the dad and kid died, but at least the wife lives and she kills the murders, so goodness prevails…right?” They are trying to say that’s wrong, because at the end of the day her family is still dead for no reason, she’s not going to be stronger because of it like the people who survive in other horror films she would have been scarred for life.

When Paul addresses the audience and asks “Do you think its enough?” of course our answer is yes, but what do we do? We keep watching. We could turn the TV at any time, but we don’t, because we don’t want to. We want to see what happens next even though we know they are prolly just going to get killed. He the character is saying we are just as much a sadist as he is. And then there is the scene early on where the wife asks Peter why they don’t just kill them now and Peter says something along the lines of “We can’t forget our entertainment” and the first reaction is that they are sick, twisted, sadistic freaks who pass the time by watching people get tortured and killed. But then, what exactly are we doing? The same thing? I mean we are not activly killing these characters, but we are watching and for what reason? And then there is the conversation about the fictional and real universe, where Paul asks why can’t the fictional universe be real too, he’s continuing to blur the line between a captive audience that watches a movie about murder and a person who murders for pleasure.

There’s my view, runnon sentences and all

wht was unnatural to me, when she was trying to untie herself, she never went over and kissed her dead son. didn’t even mention him, but when the husband called 911, he said they killed my son, powerful movie, and could be true, no?

I didn’t like this movie. I didn’t see this couple as “loving” or “normal” in any way. I think these were people who took advantage of their status at every turn and forgot that the real world can pop up at any time and bite them in the butt. I felt that roth and watts were disgusting throughout the movie and extremely self involved. It was difficult for me to put any importance at all on the boys who played the game with these 2 people as the family was so unlikeable. The only disturbing thing that happened in this film was that they killed the kid who was in fact THE only innocent person. The movie was long and it was filled with silence most of the time. I actually liked the murderers more than the family just because they tried to have a personality.

Just saw it on HBO. BOOOO! It is a disappointing study on horror. It throws in a strange TOTALLY unrelated moment of sci-fi, time play - rewinding the victims only moment of triumph in fighting back - with no reason, explanation, or connection to the story. It deserves to be on the worst 100 of The Times 2008 list.

I saw this for the first time over the weekend and… Shenanigans! — I mean, I GET IT, but still I call shenanigans. I would have liked it better if it weren’t for the REMOTE!

this movie seemed to be sort of a parody of normal horror movies. For instance, everyone died, and not only did the kid die, but he died first. Also, the man was by no means a hero. The remote control thing was a tease to the audience. What normally would have happened would be the killers would slip up, and she would get her chance to shoot them and get out. Then it happened, led us on, and rewound it back to the actual event. It wasn’t what happened in the story, more of a director move. Overall, I liked this movie alot.

Very disturbing movie. It reinforced my belief that people are getting more distrustful and paranoid about their fellow human beings to the point that they don’t feel safe in their own homes. I know I don’t answer the door when I’m home alone and always know who is behind the door when I open it. I wonder how much of this fear is based on real statistics or just artificially caused and reinforced by the media? Probably a little bit of both. Definitely thought the family could have fought back more but who knows how you would react in this extreme and fearful situation. The movie made me anxious.

I’m back and forth sort of liking and disliking this film. It’s too sordid for me. The idea could be used for a more enjoyable movie, but the way it turned out to be is way too strange, and that is largely due to the way the two disturbed characters are presented. I hope I don’t come across with another movie like this, specially one where the actors rewind the movie at some point and the action that one just saw, actually never happened. I love suspense films, but this is too sickening, and at times stupid (like the rewind scene), intellectually speaking.

Why was this movie made? I wasted 2 hours of my life watching a movie with no redeeming qualities whatsoever. To the people who would choose to call this art. This is why sometimes the Govt. shouldn’t fund the NEA. I have seen violence and sociapathy in my life and this is way to realistic. Why not fictionalize John Wayne Gacy and show his 33 victims one at a time with his ligature around their necks. See how they beg for their lives as they writhe and gasp their last breaths. Show how he dug their graves in his basement and covered them with lime to speed their decomposition. This is not something to entertain yourselves with. It is not a curiosity. It is SICK and a total waste of time.

Out of the comments I’ve read, there are a handful that aren’t full of ignorance.

This isn’t a bad movie at all, I actually enjoyed it. Because despite what people WANT to believe, it is a criticism of American want for violence and horror.

You ask yourself, why do you feel strange after you watch this movie? Because its a repulsive thought to most of you (the events of the movie), and thats the whole point. Its made to show you that violence is supposed to be repulsive, yet our audience craves it nowadays.

Good movie.

P.S. to you that are horrified by the contents of this film. I think you are a little ridiculous. Society is man made and is only a fabrication. Morals do not exist, and the concept of right and wrong is a morality issue, and therefore also does not exist. Educate yourselves, stop living the way you are taught you are supposed to, seek out the truth for yourselves.

Disturbing, sadistic and manipulative movie. I think people get frustated because we are looking for reasons all the time specially when our mortality is involved. We want to know why certain people live while others die, why that accident happenned, but in reality most things are just random, without justification.

We also want the good guys to live, but the unhappy ending just makes more sense.

It’s definitely not for everyone, it’s hard to watch and maybe it’s not as insightful as Haneken wanted it to be but overall it’s a really good interesting project.

i just watched the film on film4 cos i cldnt sleep and i must say im a real horror fan but for me that was absolute crap. The family characters were so unbelieveable i was suprised their son even died cos nobody mentioned it for a long time and the parents didnt act like they even had a son i know the writer/director was probably trying to do something different to maybe keep us in suspense but maybe he tried to hard which is probably why a majority of ppl that like it are young producers/directors/writers and i have to add that remote control scene was just a major flop for me its the main reason im on the net to get more info abt the film i guess thats what they wanted us to do to be talking abt it love it/hate it

Ok, from what I gather most of these comments share my thoughts about the rewind scene. I have no problem with a sadistic movie where the killers win, but the rewind scene is what got me looking online to investigate this movie. The only actual responses I’ve seen about it are that they show you what would normally happen in a typical movie but that it won’t happen in this one. Ok, so then why have it all? If you’re trying to be different, then just be different… don’t be like, “hey, we’re being original in this regard… see?” You all understand what I’m saying? I don’t think that argument for why it was added is completely valid, and in that case I would love to hear the director’s take on it. Anyone know if he was ever asked about it?

this movie fucking sucks! by far one of the worst movies i’ve ever watched. i mean what the fuck were they thinking making this movie. after the first 5 mins i knew if was going to suck and yes i stand correctly. mr. tim roth i know u haven’t done a movie in a long time but adding this to your movie roles doesnt help you either.