Funny Games U.S (2008)

Ann: "Why don't you just kill us?" Peter: "You shouldn't forget the importance of entertainment." These two lines are the very base for the message behind Funny Games, a stark, unrelenting look at America's infatuation with violence and torture.

This is an English version remake of the 1997 German Funny Games, by the very same director Michael Haneke. Haneke wanted his original film to reach a broader audience, especially America since his inspiration for the film was his fascination with America's desensitized appetite for gore and violent torture.

Funny Games is not your average horror movie. It is about a family that gets terrorized by a two nihilistic men who just want to torture them for fun. Many people will see this and think that the movie is just "torture porn", but it is much more. Haneke has created a movie that is disturbing in many ways. One is the fact that Haneke is daring us to see this movie. He is telling us to come and sit through the most disturbing, nihilistic, and perverse movie that he has ever made. The trailer does make this movie look fun, but it is a total joke to get you to see the movie. Another disturbing thing about the movie is the story itself. These two nihilistic men just want to go as far as they can to make us, the audience, suffer. Yet, we suffer in a different way. The suffering is not like Saw or Hostel movies, but totally different. We get tortured and abused because of how much we want to see violence. He gives us the violence and makes us go through with the pain. Funny Games does torture us, but in a way that we have never been tortured or abused before. And for that, this movie is a unique and stylish horror movie.