Product Description

Studio: Kino International Release Date: 03/11/2008 Run time: 104 minutes

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #56093 in DVD
• Released on: 2006-05-16
• Rating: Unrated
• Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
• Formats: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: French, German, Italian
• Subtitled in: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 108 minutes

Amazon.com
It is impossible to have a neutral opinion about the Austrian thriller Funny Games--a movie so relentless in its ability to shock that it gained pariah status on the film festival circuit in 1997. In the warped tradition of A Clockwork Orange, Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, and Blue Velvet, this is a film--directed with electrifying audacity by Munich-born Michael Haneke--that addresses the controversy of screen violence by making the viewer as guilty as the Leopold and Loeb-like killers who terrorize a young family of three during their summer vacation. They arrive as friendly neighbors, seducing the family with phony congeniality, but soon Funny Games reveals its devious strategy, turning savage and appalling... and completely captivating for those who can endure the terror. There's actually less violence than you'd see in a typical American horror flick such as Scream, but Haneke's forceful staging effectively fulfills his agenda of viewer complicity; we vividly experience this doomed family's fate and feel helpless to save them. So helpless, in fact, that Haneke dares to offer a hint of respite by giving a victim the upper hand, only to "replay" the same scene with the darkest of outcomes. Funny Games is guaranteed to outrage some viewers with its manipulative schemes, but there's no denying the film's visceral impact, generated by Haneke's expert handling of a superior cast. Don't even think of allowing anyone under age 17 to watch this film; all others should proceed with caution. --Jeff Shannon

From The New Yorker
A psychological thriller about two polite young sadists, dressed in tennis whites and espadrilles, who terrorize an affluent family by insinuating themselves into their lakeside home. Austrian writer-director Michael Haneke (known in cinéaste circles as "Europe's philosopher of violence") is skilled at creating a surreal atmosphere of casually escalating cruelty, and he's so knowing about the intimate relationship that can develop between tormentors and victims that his film becomes, at times, literally unbearable to watch. Much of its diabolical power stems from the sense of lurking but intangible menace that is established from almost the first frame, and from the even more disorienting gap that exists between the boys' neat, well-spoken demeanor and their brutal intentions. The movie's almost antiseptic look and calm pace only heightens the tension. Although the movie sticks deliberately to the dire games at hand, the shadow of greater evil hovers; the young perpetrators seem Nazi-like in their mocking rigor, and in the way they move coolly from bloodshed to watching television or making sandwiches. This elegant and provocative film succeeds in disturbing the peace, as all serious art does; we emerge from it guilty voyeurs, shaken by what we've just witnessed and by our own helplessness to intervene. In German. -Daphne Merkin
Copyright © 2006 The New Yorker

Customer Reviews

Clever, effective and disturbing
It is a good idea to know something about this film before watching it.

On the surface it is that familiar thriller where strangers terrorize a family.

But really it is about how you, the viewer, are complicit in on-screen violence. This is the film's priority and it is not afraid to abandon its original, more traditional plot line - however bizarrely - whenever it feels right to emphasize this.

Remember. All these horrible things are happening because you won't switch off. Overly violent films only get made because people keep paying to go and see them.

The skill of the director of Funny Games is that he makes his point without resorting to hardly any on screen violence, unlike many of the films he parodying.

I strongly recommend this film but be warned - it is not a "date movie". See it on your own because it is impossible to know how people will react to it. If you like this film your friends may think you are SICK. You are not. But Funny Games brings home to you just how many films are.

The cure for being too enamored of movie violence!
I never realized the extent to which big-budget American action films condition audiences into savoring and craving "justifiable" acts of violence until I saw this fascinating and deeply disturbing Austrian movie from noted German director Michael Haneke. I couldn't sleep after seeing it, but after about a week had passed, I was very glad that I'd seen it. I'm now "immune" from being manipulated into enjoying onscreen violence, because the movie made me keenly aware of when I AM being manipulated ... and of the "commandments" that movies featuring cathartically satisfying acts of vengeance are built upon and dare not violate.

The storyline is sort of a hybrid of THE DESPERATE HOURS and CAPE FEAR, with two very Aryan-looking young men invading the summer cottage of an upper-middle-class family of three and sadistically playing "funny games" with them. But there's much more than the surface story at work here ... Haneke has some clever tricks up his sleeve when it comes to exercising his total control over the "rules" that the movie plays by. He keeps the audience off-balance by repeatedly violating movie conventions and confounding conditioned expectations as to how events will unfold.

Amazingly, there's only ONE act of on-screen violence in the entire movie ... and it's a classic example of the 100% acceptable, "justifiable" sort that American audiences so crave and Hollywood so obligingly provides on a regular basis. But just as your "rush" kicks in, Haneke pulls the carpet out from underneath you with one of his sleight-of-hand tricks, flip-flopping your pleasure into an equivalent amount of pain. And as for the RESULTS of the OFF-screen violence ... well, you're on your own.

Special kudos should go out to actors Arno Frisch and Frank Giering, for being willing to play what must be the creepiest, most contemptible crime duo in movie history. (The hillbillies in DELIVERANCE have NOTHING on them!) It takes fearlessness to make yourself a target for audience detestation at this level, and the film wouldn't work if the roles hadn't been so capably filled.

Know going in that the "See it if you dare" challenge on the DVD cover is not to be taken lightly. But know also that if you DO take the challenge, you'll emerge from the experience shaken but wiser - in possession of a whole new perspective on the bogusness of traditional Hollywood crowd-pleasing violence.

See it if you Dare....
One word comes to mind after viewing this film... Mindblowing. You probably have never and will never see anything like this again. I purchased this DVD after reading Fangorias book on ''100 Horror Films Youve never seen''- I dont know if I could classify this as strictly horror, it goes beyond that.

This is a whole other realm thats never been touched... At least not to this severity.. Ive seen many horror/psychological terror films and after watching the likes of Maniac or Gummo I didnt think anything could outdo it, but this beats them all. Gummo was disturbing but it had no merit to it; this film has more to it than the sadistic violence and ''funny games'' the characters play. Ive never seen anything like this. The director takes a more original approach, during the film the killers actually look and talk to the camera at times, not often; but they even play the ''games'' with the audience.

Plot- a couple, their child and dog go to their vacation home. Soon after that the couple is visited by a pair of clean cut young men who soon turn ruthless and brutal. When they first introduce themselves they look like normal polite people, but when one comes over to the house asking to ''borrow eggs'' you know something is coming., You just dont know when and you are anticipating when this guy is going to lose it. You keep rooting for the victims as the film drags on, hoping that somehow they will make it..at least one of them. It goes on and on, the games dont stop, not even at the end.

This film is cruel, brutal, cold, radical, provocative with unbelievable psychological games and horror. A real eye-opener. Its not a family movie of course, it's something you would want to watch alone or in the company of someone very open-minded. You will probably be angry, depressed and astonished at the same time...as you witness the events that unfold in front of your eyes.

Recomended if you think you can handle this... It makes Cape Fear look like Bambi.