Why I hated Funny Games

As it is now obvious to you, I hated the movie Funny Games. I watched it with a friend on Sunday night, and he hated it also. We talked about it afterward, and came up with a few reasons for why we disliked it so much.

• A horror movie should make you feel scared and uncomfortable, but this movie did not succeed with that. It felt like the film was trying really hard to make me feel upset, but I could see through it. In general I'm not a fan of horror films anyway, but I will say at least that Silence of the Lambs made me feel uncomfortable.
• The lack of music in most of the film contributed to it being less disquieting. All the sounds play a huge role in how well a movie invokes certain emotions. I get that Funny Games was trying to be more realistic, like the viewer really is watching all of this happen (and I will touch on Paul talking to the camera momentarily), but it just plain wasn't realistic, in part because...
• ...the actions of the characters were at times pretty unbelievable. For example, after the little boy has been shot, the mother and father aren't even crying or shaking or freaking out. Even after the killers leave they are relatively calm; even jelly roll-less Mama doesn't take a moment to contemplate her son's death before she attempts to leave. Also, Paul's reaction to Tubby killing Georgie isn't consistent. When he is out of the room making a sandwich, he hears the gun fire but doesn't run to see what happened. Then, when he comes back into the room, he suddenly gets upset with Tubby for breaking the rules. Why was he not upset as soon as he heard the gun shot? After all, they only had two shot gun shells, so you'd think he would be pretty mad about one of them being wasted.
• Why does the movie suddenly defy the laws of nature when Paul is able to rewind the situation so that Ann doesn't shoot Tubby? You've got to be kidding me. Nothing else in the movie suggests any kind of supernatural abilities of the killers, so why is this crazy event suddenly thrown in and never explained?
• Paul talking directly to the audience totally ruined what little integrity this film had. If a rule like this is going to be broken, it needs to be done in a systematic way that improves the aspects of the movie. For example, In Ferris Bueller's Day Off, the movie opens with Ferris explaining to the audience how to fake sick. There is a purpose to this; he is about to do it, so he wants you to see how good he is at tricking his mom. It fits with Ferris' character to do something like this (like brag about how good he is at deceiving people), but Paul breaks his character completely when he suddenly addresses the audience.
  

In conclusion, I just did not feel that this film did a good job of pulling in the audience. The acting was unrealistic, the events that occurred were not believable, and the fact that this movie tried so hard to be something that was realistic and believable makes it even more insufferable. And I bet tomorrow we are going to discuss "rules" again, so I am going to continue thinking tonight about why the rule-breaking in this particular film ruined it.