FUNNY GAMES U.S.

FUNNY GAMES U.S.



In late January, I traveled afar to see last year's Oscar-nominated THERE WILL BE BLOOD. While I was there at the screening, I saw many trailers for obscure independent films. While I do not remember what many of those films were, I do remember the trailer for the movie FUNNY GAMES U.S. It looked interesting, so I went home after TWBB and checked the movie's information online. It came to my attention that this was an Americanized remake of the Swedish horror film…FUNNY GAMES made by the same guy. The original is what is often called the "granddaddy" of the torture porn genre…but tragically, filmmakers completely failed to connect with the message and themes of this movie.


While I would otherwise shun another asinine remake of a foreign horror movie, I kept reading about the original, what it was about, etc. And it made sense that the director would remake his own film shot-by-shot, in response to the self-indulgent, disgusting plethora of vacuous horror films that were being shat out on what seemed to be a weekly basis.


Having finally seen it, I will only say three words about this film.


Ho. Lee. Shit.


This is a home invasion movie akin to the French horror film THEM or the American response of THE STRANGERS. However, where as at least THE STRANGERS (never seen THEM) intention was to scare you to the core, FUNNY GAMES U.S. has another agenda on its mind altogether.


You see, we have this complex in America called SADISM. As a collective cinema-going group, we enjoy blood; we enjoy cinematic violence. We revel upon faceless murderers who employ diverse, shocking tactics to dispatch hapless prey. On the flip side, we often side with the protagonist(s)/survivors as this world is a daily struggle of incessant ridicule. We cheer when the victims turn the tables on the aggressor. It's fun. It caters to our Id; to project impulses that we could never act out on in the course of our mundane reality. We slap down our hard-earned money to sit in a darkened theater for 1-2 hours to watch these monsters, "…fire it up" so to speak.


FUNNY GAMES U.S. turns that around and asks us: What happens when amusement is stripped from a horror film? Rather than focusing on our need to act out our sinister impulses we are instead forced to experience, in detail, the psychological and physical torture of the pending victims? What happens when the "fairy" is removed from the ending of a grisly, nihilistic tale?


In short, why the HELL did you pay to view an "entertaining" fable of two psychotic golfers that torture and subsequently murder a conjugal family to, in effect, entertain themselves?


FUNNY GAMES U.S. is not entertaining. AT ALL. I honestly can't see how anybody that is not currently convicted could find this film entertaining. But that's not a bad thing. That's the point. Rather than amuse or "entertain" you, it's meant to make you furious; to perturb and give you cause to think about why it distresses you.


Mark my words: This movie is disturbing. It's fucked up is more appropriate, actually. An impressive feat as there is only one scene of on-screen violence throughout the near 2-hour run of this movie. The brilliant, patient cinematography, coupled with the superb performances by Tim Roth and Naomi Watts as the family in danger accentuate the slow-burn of the circumstances. All of the violence is implied and sterile and I'm not gonna lie to you: Some of the events that took place were so heinous that I was frankly shocked to see them in an American movie at all. FUNNY GAMES U.S. purposely crosses the line several times to drive the point home: We're all a bunch of sick fucks. And it ain't cool. At all.


It was released this Tuesday on DVD and I give it the RFB SEAL OF APPROVAL. I'd recommend checking it out. This is an artistic film set to disturb and give room for reflection. FUNNY GAMES U.S. did just that and when a movie actually delivers on what it promises and intends, I must respect that.



--Don't die in a fire--



RFB