10 Awesome Horror Movie Twists You Never Saw Coming
6. The Attackers Know They're In A Film - Funny Games
One of the best meta horror movies to grace the screen, Michael Haneke's Funny Games has actually been made by the man twice - in 1997 and 2007, but goes that extra step in his more recent adaptation to drive home his fourth-wall smashing antics. When two strangers - Paul and Peter - turn up at the Farber family's lake house, they begin to wreak havoc on their home life by capturing and torturing George, Anne, and their son Georgie.
It's a pretty standard set up for what sits somewhere between home invasion and an exploitation movie, except for one seemingly minor detail. As the duo enact their sadistic games on the Farbers, Paul shows a self awareness of the audience through looking straight down the lens. The pair seed their interactions like in-jokes as they play out their violence on screen, until it all culminates into one shocking manipulation of the film medium itself: Paul grabs a TV remote and rewinds time to gain the upper hand.
It's here that all hope is lost for this family ever making it out alive, but boy, is it a twist out of nowhere that ramps up the intensity of the movie.