Reviews From the Horror Chamber -- Funny Games, Drainiac

Welcome to Reviews from the Horror Chamber. I am your chamber keeper, Anthony Thurber. I have some news regarding this column. Next week, there will not be a new edition of Reviews From the Horror Chamber. The reason for this is that next week I have a lot of films that are waiting to be reviewed for this site. So I’m going to catch up on that. But I can tell you that I will have an interview with one or two actresses regarding “Crimson,” which is released this week from Passion River. The first one should be up on the site either after this posting or sometime late tomorrow. Also, I sent out another interview, which I won’t jinx but it’s a director from one of the best horror films of this year. I’ll also be back sometime next weekend with a review of Hellboy 2: The Golden Army. So you horror fans will still have your fix horror here on FilmArcade.net this week. Now on to the reviews.

Funny Games
Year: 2008
Director: Michael Haneke
Stars: Naomi Watts, Tim Roth, Michael Pitt
MPAA Rating: R
Studio: Warner Independent Pictures
Running Time: 111 Mins
Review Rating: Zero Stars

Funny Game is yet another remake to come out this annoying foreign horror remake craze. The film was first done by Michael Haneke (who directs this one also) in 1997. The film is about a family (Naomi Watts, Tim Roth, Devon Gearhart) who goes to their vacation home for nice, relaxed vacation. Soon a couple of rich kids decide to insert themselves into the family’s vacation by taking them hostage in their own home. The family is then forced to play the rich kids' sadistic games. Soon, they must try to find a away to stay alive and defeat those rich kids before they decide that games are over for good.

I never thought that I would find a film with so much hatred after seeing One Missed Call, but Funny Games is on that same level. This film was horrible, I thought about shutting it off midway through the film, but the film critic in me made me continue to watch this horrible mess. Director Michael Haneke’s direction was unenergetic. I say that because the pacing of the film was slow and the story was predictable mostly because he breaks the forth dimension. I’ll go more into this when I’m whining about the screenplay. The acting in this felt like I was watching paint dry, as they either shows no signs of life or the fact that the performances were annoying. Maybe, it was the screenplay, but still I didn’t buy any of the performances here.

The screenplay, which Haneke wrote, made no sense and wasn’t a least bit scary. This film falls flat on it’s face because nothing was believable or could plausibly happen. First, the villains were the type that you could easily punch in the face because they weren’t intimidating. The reason I say that is because they were a bunch of preppy rich kids that you could easily beat up if you saw them on the street. Second, why didn’t the hostages fight back? Hello, these villains were preppies, the kind of people that you kick their ass in gym class. And finally, the breaking of the forth dimension. Sorry, that doesn’t work in this genre. He allows the villains in the screenplay to talk to the audience, smile at the camera and changing a pivotal scene that makes the movie even more unrealistic and plausible. It’s fucking ridiculous. Also, Haneke spends little time developing any of the film’s characters, as the screenplay focuses on spending way too much time torturing the family and making these villains as heroes because it comes out that way in the final product.

Funny Games is not a horror film but a piece of glorified violence that is so senseless, it goes way too far.


Drainiac
Year: 2000
Director: Brett Piper
Stars: Georgia Hatzis, Alexandra Boylan, Ethan Krasnoo
MPAA Rating: Not Rated
Studio: Shock-O-Rama Cinema
Running Time: 76 Mins
Review Rating: 4 Stars

Drainiac is a film that was previously released back in 2000, but the folks at Shock-O-Rama have just released this remastered version of one of Brett Piper’s earlier films. The director has directed “Bacterium,” “Shock-O-Rama,” “Bite Me,” and “Screaming Dead” for the company before this remastered version. The film is about a young woman and her friends who go to the countryside to clean up an old house for a planned restoration. Instead of cleaning up the place, they begin to discover that a strange and gruesome presence haunts the house, as the water turns into ooze. As the strange presence begins to take shape, the teenagers are to come face to face with this hideous monster, who wants to tear their souls and flush it down the drain.

Drainiac is very creepy and entertaining demonic sprits film. This film is a good starting point for people to view some of Brett Piper’s works. He does a very job with the overall presentation of the film. It’s amazing how little money Piper always has to work with but he manages to get the job done. The effects in this film were very good. Granted, I haven’t seen the film in it’s original version. The dream sequences were creepy and frightening. Another thing that Piper always seems to get down is the actors’ performances, as they were good here, like the previous films of his that I’ve seen. He does a great job getting a solid lead performance from Georgia Hatzis. She does a very good job making her character troubled, but does a good job selling her character, in which you know about her.

Piper’s screenplay for the most was good, as this was light years better that movie I just talked about and will go nameless, so we don’t have another rant. One of the things that his screenplay does well was the development of the characters. I liked how Piper spends time in the beginning to develop the main character’s troubled home life and the relationship with her and her friends. I like to see that when I see female characters in these types of horror films, because it helps bring an added interest to the story of the film and builds tension to the film when these female characters are in trouble and you care about them. If there was one thing that the screenplay could has used more off, was scares. There were a few scares during the dream sequence, but the film could have used more, even though it didn’t affect my interest that much, as I was sold with the story and it’s development.

Draniac is very good start, if you want to track the progress of underground director Brett Piper, as I would mention this film with the likes of Screaming Dead and Shock-O-Rama. Drainiac gives new meaning to a haunted house.

If you’re a filmmaker and interested in having your horror film reviewed in the horror chamber, you can reach the Chamber Keeper himself at horrorchamber@filmarcade.net or if you have any film in any genres that you want Film Arcade to review, send us an email at screeners@filmarcade.net.

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In two weeks, I will be back with an all-new edition of Reviews From the Horror Chamber, where I’ll be reviewing The Ruins and going to school with Women’s Studies. Until then, have a frightening day.