Funny Games Trailer

I figured since I do not have the actual movie yet, I should watch the trailer for Funny Games. Watching a film trailer is similar to reading the jacket of a book. You get a decent overview of the ideas and themes of both in just a few minutes and hopefully gain some sort of insight easily. With typical movies, I find that movie trailers are better than the actual film. It is difficult to make an awful trailer. They bombard you with the most poignant and action packed sequences, leaving only the filler material for the movie.

I had fairly decent expectations for Funny Games, because of what we have covered in class so far and my enjoyment of that, I figured I would at least appreciate the movie. However, after viewing many versions of the trailer, I have absolutely no desire to view the entire film. Of course I will, because it’s for class, but nothing about the movie’s trailers seemed appealing. Throughout the trailer, red words dramatically flash onto the screen. “The game is simple. Pick a family. Pick a victim. Shall we begin?” How many movies can there be about the terrors of random victimization? It may be a hasty judgment, but this movie looks like little more than a more intelligent, dark-humored version of last summer’s blockbuster, The Strangers.

On the redeeming side, Funny Games did appear to be well made and thought out. Also, the writer and director, Michael Haneke, is a pretty well respected filmmaker, so I will not give up hope on this movie. I did like the choice of music. If even the trailer artistically utilized music, I have faith that this will be a well made film. During terribly brutal scenes of battery, Grieg’s classical song The Hall of the Mountain King was playing, which adds a nice, sick and twisted element to the trailer. Hopefully, after viewing Funny Games I will eat my words and be completely wrong for bashing the movie’s trailer, but until then, the movie comes off as pretentious and unoriginal.