If you’ve seen it, you remember it — that horror-thriller that breaks the rules and breaks your brain. What begins as a well-written, well-acted exercise in psychological torture gradually reveals itself as a direct confrontation with the audience. The young men play passive-aggressive games against the family, and Michael Haneke plays his own against us, withholding explanations for the killers’ behavior while disrupting the film’s otherwise realist flow with chilling asides to the camera. In doing so, he examines both the emotional and physical effects of violence and forces us to question why we watch such stories in the first place. Despite its reputation, very little violence is actually shown. We hear it, we see its aftermath, and that restraint paired with Haneke’s unnerving precision, makes the experience all the more disturbing and impossible to look away from.
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