When Ann, husband George, and son Georgie arrive at their holiday home they are visited by a pair of polite and seemingly pleasant young men. Armed with deceptively sweet smiles and some golf clubs, they proceed to terrorize and torture the tight-knit clan, giving them until the next day to survive.
Naomi Watts
Ann
Tim Roth
George
Michael Pitt
Paul
Brady Corbet
Peter
Devon Gearhart
Georgie
Boyd Gaines
Fred
Siobhan Fallon Hogan
Betsy
Robert LuPone
Robert
Susi Haneke
Betsy's Sister-in-Law
Linda Moran
Eve
Director, Screenplay
Michael Haneke
November 5, 2023
1
This is a movie I can't help but really despise. Especially egregious is the pretentious way in which the filmmaker takes a position of haughty moral indignation and attempts to guilt-trip his own audience for wanting to watch a horror film in the first place. We know what he wanted to achieve with this movie, because he has told us explicitly; and he thought so highly of his achievement that he decided to make the film twice, shot-for-shot. Every scene is deliberately calculated to be as awkward to watch and as boring as possible, since anti-suspense is part of the "point". It is essentially the writer/director giving a middle finger to anyone willing to sit through this finger-wagging tripe.