Funny Games

This film really goes all out when it comes to making you feel miserable. Every single scene that gave you even a slight glimmer of hope, Michael Haneke just casually shatters them and stomps on it like a cartoon bully destroying a nerd’s lunchbox.  I loved the film’s message to the audience about the “gore genre”, criticising how senseless violence is too normalised in movies and punishing the audience itself for wanting to see it happen in this film: - The two psychopaths having no reason to why they are torturing the family, just like how gore movies that just wants to show gore for no reason. -When the mother is asked to strip in front of them but they cover the child’s eye as a play on how most families are fine with violence but basic nudity is too far. -The film actively punishes us for wanting to see violence by showing one of the psychopath’s death, fooling you into feeling a sense of relief, then taking it away by rewinding the movie and reversing the death. Michael Haneke also shows us how so many media uses violence and pain as entertainment to hook people in, by having the psychopath channel surfing the television we see how many movies, news channels, and documentaries actually do this in real life and how normalised violence has become. The sad thing about the film’s message is that it still very much applies to horror movies nowadays, such as the Terrifier movies and Megan is Missing, that uses curiosity and shock value as a weapon to hook in people and modern audiences are eating it up. I hate the Terrifier movies, they are just violent for the sake of being violent, there is no reason behind it at all and I don’t get why people say they are “fun to watch”, and Megan is Missing tries to dress itself up as a PSA for teenagers but what is shown in that movie makes it feel like a way for the director to film his own sick fetish and incredibly tasteless.