10 Best Home Invasion Horror Movies

8. Funny Games

Better Watch Out
Madman Entertainment

It goes without saying that a home invasion film from Austrian veteran filmmaker Michael Haneke will be anything but simple or generic, and indeed, his 1997 cult classic Funny Games - which was also remade by Haneke himself in 2007 with a Hollywood cast - is one of the most startling films of its kind.

From an opening titles sequences which blares ear-splittingly unpleasant grindcore music at viewers, it's clear that Haneke has no interest in coddling or pandering to the audience during this dread-soaked ordeal, in which two men (Frank Giering and Arno Frisch) take a family hostage and torture them.

Haneke effectively created the film as a critique of Hollywood's more flippant, trashy thriller movies, to the extent that when the family appears to stage an escape, one of the killers literally rewinds the film and stops it from happening.

Worse still, the movie's bleaker-than-bleak ending holds nothing back, and its haunting final image effectively sees Haneke laughing at the audience for expecting the expected.

Again, it's not for all tastes, but an undeniably diverting riff on well-trod material regardless.

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Stay at home dad who spends as much time teaching his kids the merits of Martin Scorsese as possible (against the missus' wishes). General video game, TV and film nut. Occasional sports fan. Full time loon.