Funny Games is a bruised forearm movie (your date seated beside you bruises your forearm by grabbing it too hard because the dude with the oversized chainsaw just completely feminised the hell out of that handsome jock). It is one of the most viscerally assaulting pictures ever produced; a film so utterly subversive in craft that rivals the greats of Hitchcock or Carpenter. “Funny Games” is a masterwork of horror, a film that pierces our minds with stunning imagery, symbolism, dark humour and, implicit violence with hyperbolic effectiveness. The premise is simple –a vacationing family who gets an unexpected visit from two deeply disturbed young men. Their idyllic holiday turns nightmarish as they are subjected to unimaginable terrors and struggle to stay alive. What makes it effective is the juxtaposition, the contrast of tranquillity and then, the sudden violence that shocks us as if your buddy’s head just got blown off just when you land on Normandy. This is illustrated very early in the movie; the two victims (and their adorable blond haired angel of a son) whom are driving to their vacation home …show more content…
There is no redundancy in Funny Games, it is meticulous in its planning, using every shot and scene to its advantage, harnessing our fear, saving details for future use in later scenes. Even the colour of the walls (white) is used to accentuate the colour of blood, another deep contrast. Funny Games may look like a simple getaway horror film to its detractors who may claim that the meta film is at most self-aware, or exploitative bullshit masquerading as art; what they do not say is that they did indeed finish the