FUNNY GAMES (2007;a rental) 0.0**** ( My first “0***” movie) “Funny Games” is definitely NOT funny…not for one minute. In fact, the title is totally misleading in that the movie is a cruel, sadistic, torture flick of the worst kind. The torture and violence turns into a relentless assault on your mind and senses. This is one of the most unsettling movies I have ever seen. AND the primary purpose of this review is to spare you that awful experience…to warn you to stay the heck away UNLESS you are a tested and tough torture/horror movie veteran and, even then, you’ll be shaken.

“Games” shows two psychotic young men who appear harmless…the nice young preppie next-door types…who cleverly and stealthfully trick their way into expensive vacation homes in a remote gated community, going from home to home, family to family, torturing and coldly murdering the helpless people…adults and children alike. Once inside, they restrain or disable the people and force them to engage in sadistic and loathsome games where death is the inevitable outcome. In this story, we get to watch the entire process as they gain access to Ann and George’s ( Naomi Watts and Tim Roth) house. The next 90 minutes are pure horror as the 2 psychopaths hold them and their 11 year old son hostage and physically and mentally torture them. We see the family forced into “playing” the pointless cruel games, unable to escape, looking terrified and paralyzed, bearing the torture between cries and screams, wishing somehow it could just end..quickly. This is driven home where in one scene the father asks why the invaders don't just go ahead and kill them. The more vicious of the two cruelly replies: "You should not forget the importance of entertainment."…i.e. the “fun” of the games.
If any movie deserves the genre title "torture", this one certainly deserves does along with the wretched crown. Because that's what sitting through this movie feels like -pure torture. It's ironical because the director’s goal was to create a movie that mocks America’s fascination with violence – but, instead, the movie ends up feeling like is a long, slow, and terrible death. It doesn’t mock violence..it glorifies it. What can we learn from this sick film? Absolutely nothing. Watching the misery and terror of a family being held hostage and seeing them and their child horribly tortured and killed does not need to be made into a film. So, it bears repeating….this is one of the most repugnant, unpleasant, sadistic movies I’ve ever seen. No matter what virtues of craft can be found within, no matter what themes lie beneath, “Funny Games” is purely and simply indefensible.

Clark