Not so Funny Games

In the film "Funny Games," fear is a very apparent theme throughout.  I had never seen this movie before and what I saw what not what I expected. I was confused by the title originally because I did not understand its relation to the film itself. After finishing the movie, I understood a little bit but still felt it odd. I also was uneasy throughout the whole movie. I felt very uncomfortable by the two boys in white, Peter and Paul. Obviously, Ann, George, and Georgie experience extreme fear. Fear causes the irrational to seem reasonable. For example, the fact that no one suspects these strangers in the neighborhood that we find out has killed at least one other family and potentially more.  Another example of this irrational seeming reasonable can be seen when Ann attempts to run for help instead of finding a phone somewhere nearby. Her first instinct was to run down a car that obviously ended up bringing her back to her own home. Fear is also paralyzing. The first family that is murdered never asked for help when Ann and George arrived. They did the same when the neighbors came from across the lake. They were too afraid of the repercussions of their actions if they did ask for help.

In “The Paradox of Horror” by Carrol, the question of why we watch horror films is addressed. We want to understand the world around us; therefore, in horror films, we want to understand why someone is doing something or why something is happening. In this film, we do not fully get an answer to this question. We do not know why Peter and Paul are killing these families. We can assume it is for the money because Paul warns Peter not to ruin the rug in the home; however, it seems as though they move on to the next family without collecting any money or items from the home. Not only do we want to understand what is going on, we want to experience the emotions of fear and horror. This movie does a great job with expressing those feelings of fear to the audience because we all can imagine someone coming into our homes like Peter and Paul did. We have neighbors that come to borrow eggs and this movie feeds into the fears that we all have with our surroundings. You do not really know what someone is capable of until they do it.