Horror is a genre designed for remakes and reboots, with canonicity never truly important to the tales being told. Surprisingly, fans are praising a Western remake of a cult classic horror flick.
In a rare case, the original director helmed its remake and made it a shot-for-shot reproduction of his own classic film. Michael Haneke’s Funny Games, sometimes called Funny Games U.S. to differentiate it from its predecessor, is currently getting showered with praise online.
The original was released just ten year prior, in 1997, to great acclaim at Venice Film Festival, and it sparked an American remake very quickly.
One thing Western horror audiences may be less experienced with is confrontational cinema, especially films centered on intense psychological horror. Naomi Watts and Tim Roth star in the film and deliver expert portrayals of people going through the most traumatic events of their lives.
It’s among best-done remake of a foreign film in cinema history, and a lot of the positives undoubtedly come from Haneke returning to direct. Typically, a Western remake ends up average or occasionally passable such as with The Ring or The Grudge.
The remake has seen a significant change from where it first landed among critical circles, with a 51 percent Rotten Tomatoes score at launch. In 2008 it was dubbed “art-house torture porn” by The Times, which could sway you either way into watching it or not.
Funny Games is available to rent from Amazon Prime Video, while its predecessor is available on HBO Max.