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In recent years, horror movies have become more and more mainstream. They’re not just for October anymore—and they’re not just for rebellious teenagers, either. Indie horror movies are even showing up in art houses—and at film festivals like Sundance, where they screen for the cinematically elite. And if Funny Games is any indication, the genre is on its way to becoming accepted as art—but it’s not there yet.
A shot-by-shot remake of a 1997 Austrian film, Funny Games is a psychological horror film about a family whose vacation is interrupted by a pair of polite and innocent-looking young men in white gloves. When Peter (Brady Corbet) comes to the door to ask for some eggs, Anna (Naomi Watts) thinks nothing of it. But it soon becomes terrifyingly clear that Peter and his friend, Paul (Michael Pitt), are looking for more than just eggs. They’re playing a twisted game with Anna, her husband, George (Tim Roth), and their young son, Georgie (Devon Gearhart)—one that has them fighting for their own lives.
In the beginning, Funny Games is an eerily suspenseful film. It’s almost impossible to watch it without thinking of Stanley Kubrick. The story is tense and uncomfortable—and, right from the start, you’ll sense that something is about to go very, very wrong. As things start to spin out of control, it only gets better. The tension builds even more—until you’ll have a hard time catching your breath. But then it falls apart.
At first, the little things start to chip away at a previously solid horror film—like when Paul turns to the camera to have a chat with the audience. Then the action slows way down—at one point, practically grinding to a halt. And it just continues to crumble from there.
I can appreciate what writer/director Michael Haneke (who also directed the Austrian original) was trying to do with Funny Games—taking the usual torture film and making it smarter and more refined. Artistic, even. And, for the first half of the movie or so, it works. It feels like a smart, art-house-worthy kind of horror film. But then Haneke seems to lose his way. He falls back on the old horror clichés and formulas—and a few other tricks that will have audiences cringing. After a while, the wealthy, educated characters make just as many stupid mistakes as the naïve college kids make in mainstream horror flicks. Naomi Watts spends just as much time running around in her underwear for no good reason as young scream queens do. And the story isn’t nearly as thought-provoking as it could have been.
Though it had the potential to be a smart and artistic horror film, Funny Games ends up being just another torture flick. As in other horror movies, the characters are undeveloped, and the victims are clueless and naïve. As in other art-house flicks, it’s often agonizingly slow. The result is a movie that’s not satisfying enough for the art-house crowd—and not thrilling enough for the slasher-flick crowd.
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