Funny Games

Notoriously nihilistic filmmaker Michael Haneke revisits one of his most controversial works in this remake of 1997's Funny Games starring Naomi Watts and Tim Roth. When a family of three arrives at their remote summer cabin for a quiet getaway, the sudden arrival of two psychotic men sets the stage ...more

Meet the modern day Cleavers: Mother Anne (Naomi Watts), Father George (Tim Roth), and son George Junior (Devon Gearhart), a triad of domestic bliss. Endearing to an almost unconvincing degree, they vacation lakeside and regale themselves with a game of guess-the-composer on the way to their lavish summer estate. But when the soothing strains of classical music that open Funny Games are interrupted by death metal screams, any semblance to '50s-era sitcoms abruptly crumbles. "This ain't Leave it ...more

The most effective thrillers and horror films are the ones that place sympathetic characters in precarious situations and then make the audience watch helplessly as those characters do everything that the viewer would in order to survive. If we, as an audience, are lucky -- and the filmmaker is only trying to entertain us -- then perhaps one or two of those characters emerge from the conflict alive. On the other hand, if the filmmaker is operating by a different set of rules or trying to deliver ...more