NOTE: If you want my full opinion on this film read my editorial here. This review will be brief.
Funny Games is a remake of Michael Haneke’s 1997 Austrian film of the same name. Apparently it is a shot-for-shot remake, which instantly tells me that if you have already seen the original then there is no need to see this. Actually, if you haven’t seen the original there is also no need to see this one, because it isn’t good.
Here’s the idea. A family heads out to their summer house to vacation. Once they arrive two young men (Michael Pitt and Brady Corbett) proceed to torture them.
Sound fun? Well, there is a little more to the story than that, but not much.
You see, the film is an attempt by Haneke (who also wrote the flick) to force audiences to ask themselves what exactly it is they get out of the horror genre. It also draws comparison to violence in media, but the article I linked above breaks all that down much more than is necessary here.
The problem with Funny Games is that it isn’t an enjoyable film to watch. At no point will you be entertained and when it all ends you will wonder why you watched it at all. If Haneke wanted audiences to ask themselves what they get out of horror films he should have just asked them, because getting them to waste their money on what turns out to be a useless experimental film isn’t the route I would have gone for.
Based on my editorial it certainly can open up conversation, but it such a short and simply argument that you won’t even get much joy out of the discussion.
