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Nothing funny about these games.

Director Michael Haneke has long spurned Hollywood and has repeatedly refused to make a movie in America.  I was quite surprised to hear that he was making a movie for a Hollywood company and even more surprised to learn it would be a remake of one of his most popular movies.  The 1997 original version of Funny Games is one of the most disturbing films I’ve ever seen.  The thought of anyone remaking it, even the original director seemed very foolish.  Directors coming to the States to remake their films have met with mixed results (see Ring II).  A decade after the original was released, Haneke has returned with a shot for shot remake that is just as disturbing and shocking as the German original.

When a family goes to their summer home looking for rest and relaxation, they get more than they bargained for when a couple of well dressed boys show up looking for eggs.  Ann (Naomi Watts), George (Tim Roth) and Georgie (Devon Gearhart) are looking for a peaceful summer vacation.  Peter (Brady Corbet) and Paul (Michael Pitt) arrive on their door step looking for eggs before they can even unpack.  When the two boys get a little aggressive, George asks them to leave.  Paul picks up a golf club and breaks George’s leg and takes the family hostage.  From there, Peter and Paul make a bet with the family that they won’t win their game.  The rules are simple: the family has to survive the night and Peter and Paul are going to try to kill them all before 8 am.

If the description sounds off putting then this is not the film for you.  From the moment the two boys arrive on screen (which is about ten minutes in); their menacing nature sets the audience on edge.  For the remaining time, Peter and Paul torture, kill and maim the family in whatever manner they see fit.  If the violence of the film wasn’t enough, Haneke’s style is very cold and detached draining the human emotion out of the film and creating a very stark, realistic film.  By allowing all the violence to happen off screen, the audiences mind fills in the rest and you start thinking things happen that you never see making the Funny Games seem much more violent than it actually is.

If a lesser director, let’s say Eli Roth, had handled this remake, most of the violence would have been onscreen and nothing would have been left to the imagination.  The point would have been missed entirely.  Much of the film plays like the shower scene in Psycho.  You never see the knife enter the body but you would swear you did. Funny Games isn’t for everyone.  Both versions of the film have divided audiences and critics.  Some hail Haneke as a genius and other view him as another shock filmmaker that only revels in the exploitative. 

Sadly, there are no extra features on the DVD and it would have been great to have had a commentary or interview with the director and cast about making the movie.  Haneke is one of the top director’s working today and an exploration into why he would remake one of his films American audiences would have been very interesting.

Michael Haneke’s Funny Games is just as emotionally disturbing today as it the original was when it was released.  I would highly recommend renting either version as they are the same movie just with a different cast and one is in English and the other in German.  I don’t know that most people will want to own this as even its biggest fan will only want to watch it once very few years.

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