The Farbers love games. They're playing one at the outset (Guess the Composer -- Mozart or Metallica?), driving along to their Long Island summer retreat with yacht and golf clubs in tow.

Once inside the safe, gated development, daddy George (Tim Roth), mom Ann (Naomi Watts), son Georgie (Devon Gearhart) and golden retriever Lucky stop to say hi to their neighbors, who seem oddly distant and preoccupied with two young preppie-looking guests: Paul (Michael Pitt) is chatty and charming. Peter (Brady Corbet) is the reticent one.

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'Funny Games'

2 1/2 stars = Average
Ratings explained

• Starring: Naomi Watts, Michael Pitt, Brady Corbet.
• Rating: R for terror, extreme violence and some language.
• Web site: wip.warnerbros.com/funnygames/

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Soon enough, Peter comes next door to ask Ann if he can borrow four eggs. He has a creepily polite voice -- like Adam Sandler's in that "Can I water your plants?" routine. Ann obliges. Oops! Peter drops the eggs. Can he have four more? Can unspeakable violence be lurking just around the corner? Yes -- around the corner of your kitchen, not your street.

In his "Funny Games" thriller, German writer-director Michael Haneke deftly builds suspense with unsettling details: the too-slow-moving electric gate, the nervous dog, even a steak thawing out on the counter seems ominous. And why do Peter and Paul always wear white gloves, as if they were lab workers preparing to experiment on hapless rats?

The Farbers can't seem to get rid of them. The boys get increasingly aggressive, and when George finally slaps Paul for his insolence, it's "Let the games begin!" in earnest.

First, Ann misses her golden retriever. Then she misses a golden opportunity to tell some visiting boaters what's going on. Logic is also missing. You'd think George might put up a little more of a struggle, but a single golf-club chip shot shatters his resistance as well as his femur. George is a role-reversed wimp -- the helpless, useless one in the family. At least his wife and kid make a good old occasional college try.

"Funny Games' " cool, intellectual detachment leaves it as devoid of motivation as the two psychos themselves. Haneke's script gives only the barest insight into their characters. They may or may not be drug addicts. They may or may not be gay. They lie and give mockingly different accounts of their past.

"Why don't you just kill us?" groans Ann, late in the nightmare.

"You shouldn't forget the importance of entertainment," comes the reply.

Though the film's shockingly casual violence is infrequent (and takes place largely off-screen), its voyeuristic torture-terror is reminiscent of Peckinpah's "Straw Dogs" (at best) and the "Saw" shock-shlock flicks or the infamous "Last House on the Left" (at worst). The sadomasochistic beef is here. But where's the social commentary?

The Farbers are upscale Clutters, and I'd say avoid them and the cold-blooded Hickok and Smith equivalents who torment them, except for the excruciatingly good performances. Michael Pitt (excellent as the Kurt Cobain figure in Gus Van Sant's "Last Days") is becoming a doom specialist -- either doomed himself, or the Angel of it for others.

Corbet is likewise fine. Tim Roth is as much a glutton for punishment here as in Tarantino's "Reservoir Dogs," pathetically trying to blow-dry his wet cell phone for the 911 call he never manages to complete.

Haneke's "The Piano Teacher" (2001) and "Cache" (2005) were both superb. But "Funny Games" is something else. I haven't seen his original 1997 Austrian version of this story, though I tried. This is said to be a shot-by-shot remake, the English dialogue identical to the German, the hostage house an exact replica of the original, the same grueling 110-minute running time.

Question is, why? A new approach to film theory and practice? To remake the same movie every 10 years, in a different country and language, as a decennial exercise in ... what? Obsession? Translation? The Myth of Sisyphus? Futility?

You wanna reach into the screen and kill these smug, sexy killers, but just when one of 'em finally gets it, director Haneke is unkind and rewinds! He gives us one brief moment of emotional satisfaction, then snatches it back. Some may think it "irony," breaking the fourth and other cinematic walls. Some, like me, may just think it unforgivable.

Comedownance, not comeuppance, is the name of these diabolical, unfunny "Games."