Michael Haneke’s Benny’s Video is the kind of movie that makes you wonder if the director hates not just his characters, but you personally for watching it. This is a film so drenched in cold detachment that it makes American Psycho look like a Pixar short. It’s bleak, clinical, and about as fun as watching paint dry on a gallows.
And yet, critics loved it. It won the FIPRESCI Award at the European Film Awards, which I assume is just the cinematic equivalent of giving your kid a participation trophy for the best school shooting re-enactment.
The Plot: Snuff TV at Home
Teenage Benny is a walking PSA against camcorders, a boy so obsessed with screens that he makes today’s TikTok zombies look like monks. His parents, rich and aloof, fund his obsession with the enthusiasm of people raising the Antichrist by way of Radio Shack.
Benny loves replaying footage of a pig getting executed with a captive bolt gun. So naturally, he decides to invite a girl over to watch this charming home movie. And then—plot twist—he shoots her with the same gun. Surprise! Benny’s Video is less “boy meets girl” and more “boy meets felony.”
Instead of panicking, Benny films the cleanup, because nothing says “mentally stable” like editing your own murder reel. He then goes clubbing, gets a haircut, and shows the tape to his parents like he’s just completed a science fair project. And his parents? They shrug, toss the tape in a drawer, and go straight into corpse disposal mode like this is a Wednesday chore.
The climax? Benny casually rats everyone out to the cops, answering the question “Why?” with the chilling profundity of “Because.” It’s less Silence of the Lambs and more Silence of the Screenplay.
The Characters: Zombies in Nice Apartments
Benny (Arno Frisch) is a charisma vacuum. He doesn’t speak so much as mumble his way through murder. If Norman Bates had all the charm stripped out and replaced with VHS static, you’d get Benny. He’s not scary, he’s not even pitiable—he’s just a sponge in human form, soaking up images and wringing them out as apathy.
His parents, Georg and Anna (Ulrich Mühe and Angela Winkler), redefine “useless.” They enable, excuse, and ultimately assist their son’s crime with the kind of detachment usually reserved for accountants balancing spreadsheets. They’re less concerned about the murder and more annoyed about their vacation schedule. When Benny shows them the tape of his crime, Georg’s reaction isn’t “My God, what have you done?” but more “Great, now I have to cancel my golf game.”
And the victim? She doesn’t even get a name. Just “girl.” Her main character trait is showing up to die. She’s less a person and more a pig stand-in, which might be Haneke’s whole point, but it plays more like narrative laziness than deep commentary.
The Style: Haneke, Patron Saint of Misery
Michael Haneke has built his career on films that stare into the void and then hand you a mirror so you can watch yourself staring into the void. Benny’s Video is no exception. The camera is static, the editing glacial, the tone so clinical it feels like you’re watching CCTV footage of a crime scene where the murderer is also the cameraman.
Haneke wants you to feel uncomfortable, and boy does he succeed. But “uncomfortable” doesn’t always equal “compelling.” Sometimes it equals “I hate every single person in this movie and want the pig from the opening to come back as a vengeful ghost.”
The whole thing is so cold, it makes Stanley Kubrick look like Robin Williams. Even the murder itself is filmed indirectly, shown on a monitor-within-a-frame, as though Haneke is wagging a finger saying, “See, you’re complicit too.” Thanks, Michael, but I didn’t pull the trigger—I just bought the VHS from Blockbuster because the cover looked edgy.
The Themes: Violence, Media, Ennui… Yawn
Yes, yes, it’s about media saturation, desensitization to violence, and how affluent families breed monsters when they raise kids via technology instead of parenting. Groundbreaking stuff—if you hadn’t already seen it done better in Natural Born Killers, Videodrome, or literally any news report since 1985.
Haneke hammers the same theme over and over: television numbs us, violence is normalized, parents are complicit. By the 90-minute mark, you’re not enlightened—you’re bludgeoned into apathy, just like Benny. It’s ironic, maybe even intentional, but it’s also boring. Watching Benny’s Video is like being lectured about the dangers of smoking by someone blowing cigarette smoke in your face for two hours.
The Pacing: A Snail Could’ve Directed It Faster
The film moves at the speed of a funeral march for someone you didn’t like. Entire minutes are spent staring at blank rooms, static shots, or Benny silently watching TV. There’s realism, and then there’s “I could’ve cleaned my entire apartment in the time it took for this shot to end.”
Haneke’s idea of tension is to let the camera sit until the audience either feels deep dread or falls asleep. It’s a bold choice—if your idea of bold is microwaving oatmeal for an hour just to see if it will explode.
The Verdict: A Murder Tape Masquerading as Art
There’s no denying Benny’s Video is provocative. It’s a critique of violence, media, and parental negligence. But just because something is provocative doesn’t mean it’s good. Sometimes it just provokes you into throwing the tape out the window.
The film wants to indict us, the viewers, for consuming violent media. The problem? We didn’t ask to be here. We bought a ticket, not a confession. It’s less entertainment and more punishment, a cinematic detention where the teacher forces you to copy “Media is bad” 500 times on the chalkboard.
At the end, when Benny shrugs off his crime with a limp “Because,” you realize the movie has the same answer for existing: Because Haneke could. It’s a thesis paper filmed in real time, complete with footnotes made of ennui.
Final Thoughts: Benny’s Boring
Benny’s Video isn’t scary, thrilling, or even particularly shocking. It’s just numbing. Like Benny himself, the movie watches violence with an empty stare and dares you to care. But instead of feeling horrified, you just feel trapped—like you’re watching someone else’s camcorder footage of a funeral for a pig.
If this was meant to critique our obsession with images, congratulations, Michael Haneke: you made me wish I was watching literally any other image. A cat video, a screensaver, even static fuzz would’ve been more engaging.
