Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon (2006)

First, it needs to be said that if you hate slashers, you probably shouldn't watch this movie. It's just not for you.

Behind the Mask is like two movies. The first half of it is a mockumentary, with a journalist following a man who aspires to be a serial killer like Jason, Michael Myers, and Freddy Krueger (who exist in the world of the movie as real killers, not movie icons). This half has a good bit of comedy and pokes fun at slasher films, with the namesake of the film, Leslie, explaining how he carefully scoped out a girl to be his "survivor" and set up things in and around the house (where the killings will take place) to ensure that no one gets alive. It suggests that the actions of the supernatural killers are planned ahead with great thought and not done spur the moment. It is a business, and it takes a lot of work. This is very enjoyable, especially for those who have seen a lot of slasher movies.

The second half, however, is like a regular movie. A regular slasher, at that. There are one or two surprises, but they're very predictable and not surprising at all. Nothing great happens, and there isn't even any gore to spice things up. People get hit quickly and die quickly. This half is boring and should have been left on the cutting room floor. Sure, the movie wouldn't have made a lot of sense, but it would have been a better movie. The second half is exactly what was being made fun of in the first half, a generic slasher. It's a shame.

I want to recommend this movie, but I also want to say that you should fast-forward when the camera crew puts down their cameras and things get real. That way, you'll get to see what happens, and you won't have to waste forty minutes watching the same drivel you've already seen in a million other movies.

Funny Games (2008)

Ever heard of the game Postal 2? In the game, there are very long load times and incredibly annoying music, meant to piss you off. This movie is like Postal 2. Except, in that game, you get to take out your frustrations by killing people. No such luck here. There is no catharsis, no satisfactory ending, nothing at all to make you feel good. It's just a steaming pile of shit.

At first, you can't even tell that this is a horror movie. For a good, long time, nothing happens. You get a feel for the three family members, but mostly, it's just a bunch of shots of them living their normal lives. Then, a young man appears asking for some eggs, and nothing happens for another ten minutes. There's some suspense, because you know this guy is one of the bad guys, because that's what all the trailers say, and that's just how the movie goes, but because you know all this, it's not that satisfying. That, and the fact that it takes forever for something to actually happen. A woman walking into the room where Michael Myers is hiding, that's suspenseful. A shot of the woman reading a magazine for ten minutes while Michael stands in the closet, that's boring.

When the movie finally starts up, the response isn't, "Man, this is going to be so cool." Right from the get go, you feel uncomfortable. The violence is real. Too real, as a matter of fact. It's not exaggerated, and the people don't deserve it in the least. It is pure violence for the sake of violence. No laughs. No gory special effects. No way to not take it seriously. It will make you feel like shit. And the violence isn't the only unsavory part of the movie. There are a ton of useless scenes here. For example, there's "watch man blow-dry a cell phone for a full minute" and "exterior of a house during the middle of the night, with indistinct sounds, for thirty seconds." These are pointless and serve no purpose other than to piss off the audience even more.

Now, some movies make you feel like shit while watching it, only to make you love them afterwards, because they've said something important or true. This is the case with Requiem for a Dream and Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer. Funny Games is not one of those movies. There is absolutely nothing to learn, no big truths about the world, no redeeming factor of any kind, in this movie. At the end, you will feel like crap, and you will have learned nothing. You'll have wasted an hour and fifty minutes, all for nothing. I wish I had never watched this movie. I wish I had instead spent the time watching reruns of Roseanne. That would have been a better use of my time.