Rating:

I saw this movie one night on the independant film channel. I had missed the first 20 minutes. I hate coming into the middle of a movie I’ve never seen. But this time I watched the rest and quickly researched when it would be on again so I could record it.

This movie is utterly terrifying. It shakes you down and, like I’ve read in other reviews, makes you stare blankly at the screen well after it’s over.

The things that make this so shocking are not easily noticed. It wasn’t until I tried describing this movie to a friend that I realized that the reason the anti-heroes were so effective in their reign over the victimized family, is that, with all their brutality, the two youths were extremely polite.

They asked politely for everything–using words like please and thank you and, at least initially, most of the brutality happened when the victims didn’t comply with the antagonist’s relatively simple requests. After several easy requests, the orders become more and more difficult and traumatic. But never do the two antagonists scream, yell or otherwise verbally assault their victims. In fact, they often ask why the victims drove them to cause such destructive results.

These character were not cardboard cut-outs that are typical of most movies of this sort. They show thought, as demented as it is. They know what makes the victims squirm and Michael Haneke makes the audience squirm along with them.

A lot of people have problems with some of the cinematic gimmicks that are employed in the film, but this is a cinematic commentary on social violence, not a mockumentary. And, while not perfect, these techniques are to show the viewers that they themselves are part of all this.

The viewer has as much power as the killers. They may turn it off at any time. They may stop the _movie_ that the two antagonists fully realize they are a part (proof shown by the rewind scene). Yes. These characters realize they are in a movie. The victims, however, do not. The viewer is as much under attack as the victims. As much power as the viewers have to make it stop, they have no power to alter the outcomes if they choose to continue watching.

It’s a tough accomplishment to play both sides as a filmmaker. Hitchcock employed techniques not unlike this. Hitchcock made his villains sympathetic. You wanted them to get away with it. In Psycho, every tenses up when the car won’t sink into the river. Why do they tense? Because they want it to.

Haneke does not make his villains sympathetic. But he does make you the viewer want to know what they are going to do next. The villains know you are watching them. At one point he even winks at you. They know that you are curious as to what is going to happen next.

They are there to entertain you.

They are there to torture you.

Michael Haneke is pulling the strings of the audience and when the show is over, you feel it. You feel played. Like someone has had their way with you. That’s what Haneke wanted. He accomplished his goal and therefore has made a very effective film.

Rating:

This is a whole other realm thats never been touched… At least not to this severity.. Ive seen many horror/psychological terror films and after watching the likes of Maniac or Gummo I didnt think anything could outdo it, but this beats them all. Gummo was disturbing but it had no merit to it; this film has more to it than the sadistic violence and ”funny games” the characters play. Ive never seen anything like this. The director takes a more original approach, during the film the killers actually look and talk to the camera at times, not often; but they even play the ”games” with the audience.

Plot- a couple, their child and dog go to their vacation home. Soon after that the couple is visited by a pair of clean cut young men who soon turn ruthless and brutal. When they first introduce themselves they look like normal polite people, but when one comes over to the house asking to ”borrow eggs” you know something is coming., You just dont know when and you are anticipating when this guy is going to lose it. You keep rooting for the victims as the film drags on, hoping that somehow they will make it..at least one of them. It goes on and on, the games dont stop, not even at the end.

This film is cruel, brutal, cold, radical, provocative with unbelievable psychological games and horror. A real eye-opener. Its not a family movie of course, it’s something you would want to watch alone or in the company of someone very open-minded. You will probably be angry, depressed and astonished at the same time…as you witness the events that unfold in front of your eyes.

Recomended if you think you can handle this… It makes Cape Fear look like Bambi.

Rating:

The game starts with the introduction of an odd family with Grandpa looking for lost objects. The main screen is a map of the family house with a number of objects needed in each room. Click on the room and you enter and look at a very jumbled selection of items hidden and obvious.

The most fun was trying to think of all the variations and interpretations any given object could be. In other words, you might be asked to find a dog and it could be a stuffed dog, a dog in a picture, a dog on a sign, the shadow of a dog… You have to really suspend your obvious thinking and keep your mind open.

Each room has the availability of one or more clues to find difficult object.

As the game continues, the objects and quantity of objects gets more difficult. After each complete search level, you get a picture puzzle to assemble. The puzzle reveals a hidden artifact that Grandpa is looking for.

You then have to find that artifact in any one of a number of rooms.

Eventually, you have found everything and you have to find Grandpa’s missing gems. Finally, you get to play a “Simon” memory game.

The only drawback is after the memory game, I wished there was some other finale puzzle but the game just ends there.

There are a few bonuses. Many rooms have a “family photo” that becomes a mini game of memory.

It is a great way to pass the time while on hold or just to zone out for a bit.

Rating:

Not a bad game, but it does seem to have some issues.

Rating:

There are jigsaw mini-puzzles to do along the way as you travel the world with the Scruffs, and these are entertaining. One object is featured in each puzzle and you will have to locate that object in the Scruff’s messy house before you can proceed to the next level.

The “hint” mechanism, the little dog Scruffy, who jumps up and down ecstatically when you feed him a dog biscuit and he gets close to the hidden object is -well- funny. Ten year olds will love him but so will the older folk. This game will appeal over a wide spectrum of ages, an enjoyable escape for all!

Rating:

The start is a little depressing: daddy just got fired and the family needs to sell the house but… wait… grand daddy, an ‘old timer’ kind of… remembers that there was something that, if found, maybe they didn’t have to sell the house.

What follows is a series of puzzles where you must find various items inside rooms full of hundreds of artifacts. Then, if you do find them, you restore a torn picture off its fragments and then… there’s some secret code that it’s revealed if you find more items and so on, and so forth…

Not bad, for something that’s ‘free’. You get a story line and you it’s a pretty good brain tease.

The following are notable features:

- Compatible with Windows XP, Vista.

- Plays in a window or ‘full screen’ – resolution seems to be 800×600.

- Time constrained or ‘relaxed’ mode.

- Some help is available if you really, really can’t find an item.

- When played in a window, the game (clock) stops whenever the game is not the ‘active’ window.

- I experienced no display issues on a Vista laptop

- I found no evidence of any malware/spyware attached to this game. So far, the game played cleanly, strictly my computer – did not have to reach out over the Net for anything.

Overall, not a bad game, if you have the time and the patience. I’ve been actually playing it for the past couple of days and, to my surprise, my 11 yr. old kid asked that I downloaded a copy to his own laptop.

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Notes:

- I had to install Amazon’s ‘downloader’ software before downloading the game itself. It was pretty quick and it appears to be harmless.

- When installed, if you keep the defaults, all games go as subfolders inside a folder named Amazon Games.