Funny Games

If the mark of a good film leaves a welt on the collective soul of its audience then Funny Games is that film. Half of the audience will walk out, the half that watch the entire affair will be left in a twilight state somewhere between ennui and nihilism.
Funny Games is Michael Haneke's virtual remake of the his earlier film, French language version, of the same name (1997). Haneke's films that have been released theatrically in the US are his more recent The Piano Teacher and Cache. Certainly Funny Games pushes enough buttons that I'm compelled to seek out the original sometime soon.
Tim Roth and Naomi Watts (also a producer) with family (son and dog) in tow arrive for a weekend in the country, that is to say one of those estates separated from its neighbors by acres and fences. An idyllic vacation becomes a nightmare when guest of the next door neighbors show up to borrow eggs. After this film Michael Pitt will always be the creepy killer guy. Pitt and Brady Corbet take the family hostage, break the Dad's leg essentially leaving the Mom and son helpless. One scene where Watts finds the dog, now dead, is so truly twisted. She opens the back of the family SUV and the dog topples out. But not before its limp head tips the weight of its girth and proceeds to roll out the car link a slinky. That was a movie moment.
Like a litmus test of our worst fears the film unwinds as a series of psychological mind games. The duo torments their captives with sadistic play and you must decide whether you go along with the games, especially after Haneke breaks the fourth wall (it happens like three times) and addresses the audience directly. There's another scene where a character grabs a remote control and rewinds the action we see unfolding before our eyes. Fans of Cache will not find this surprising but Funny Games is not directed so much at the art house crowd as the multiplex hordes. A bright cast, nice cinematography, well directed tension and in the end a gut turning attitude that rivals the best horror films for comparison.