Every so often, a director takes it upon himself to Americanize and modernize obscure, underappreciated cinematic gems. Gus Van Zant did it in his 1998 shot-for-shot remake of the Alfred Hitchcock classic Psycho. This time ’round, director Michael Haneke’s 1997 German-language thriller Funny Games got a revamping: a shot-for-shot U.S. remake of his own film, now with high-profile actors.

Not surprisingly, FG carries the same, simple premise: A family basking in the lap of tasteful affluence takes a road trip to their sunny, posh countryside manor. That is, until two baby-faced teens clad in angelic white shirts, gloves and tennis slacks drop by to borrow a few eggs, claiming to be neighbors.

But white is an all-too-misleadingly innocent color: After one miscreant, Paul, accidentally-on-purpose drops the eggs, Peter chides him rather harshly for his “error.” The family’s father, George (Tim Roth), mother Ann (Naomi Watts) and son Georgie (Devon Gearhart) intervene, and shortly more than a few eggshells are cracked.

Peter (Brady Corbet) and Paul (Michael Pitt) are textbook psychopaths. They hold the family captive and entice them to participate in a series of sadistic and morally dehumanizing “games.” Ironically, they don’t seem to stroll with a criminal swagger: They’re well-mannered, chatty, moneyed and – oh yes – murderous little devils whose wealthy boredom somehow dovetailed into brutal killing sprees.

Thankfully, Haneke depicts most of the cruel violence, like his original, offscreen. But more importantly, FG‘s director is hell-bent on breaking the fourth wall. In one scene, Paul takes a breather from mauling George with a golf club to stare directly into the camera. Haneke wants his spectators to question why they bother watching senseless acts of violence.

The audience-as-accomplice shtick is novel enough to make Funny Games a poignant and wicked essay that argues against Americans taking pleasure in kill-thrill movies.