Benny's Video (1992)

Name: Benny's Video (1992)
Genre: Drama, Crime
Released: November 18, 1994
Duration: 105 min
Rating: 60
Cast: Angela Winkler, Arno Frisch, Christian Pundy, Hanspeter Müller, Ingrid Stassner

1994

METASCORE

Mixed or average reviews based on 9 Critic Reviews

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USER SCORE

Generally favorable reviews based on 14 Ratings

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7.8

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7.8	User Score Generally favorable reviews based on 14 Ratings

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Movie Details & Credits

Roxie Releasing | Release Date: November 18, 1994 | Not Rated

Starring: Angela Winkler, Arno Frisch, Christian Pundy, Hanspeter Müller, Ingrid Stassner, Max Berner, Shelley Kästner, Stefan Polasek, Stephanie Brehme, Ulrich Mühe

Summary: A 14-year-old video enthusiast is so caught up in film fantasy that he can no longer relate to the real world, to such an extent that he commits murder and records an on-camera confession for his parents.

Director: Michael Haneke

Genre(s): Drama, Crime

Rating: Not Rated

Runtime: 105 min

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Critic Reviews

Scott Tobias

Haneke's schoolmarm tendencies come to the surface in Benny's Video, which implicates the media for desensitizing people to violence. Read full review

John Hartl

Haneke carefully and ingeniously presents the boy's point of view without sympathizing with him. He then does the same with his horrified but protective parents. [18 Nov 1994, p.G35]

Stephen Holden

What gives the film a chilly authenticity is the creepy performance of Arno Frisch in the title role. Cool and unsmiling, with a dark inscrutable gaze, his Benny is the apotheosis of what the author George W. S. Trow has called the cold child, or an unfeeling young person whose detachment and short attention span have been molded by television. Read full review

Edward Guthmann

Haneke directs Benny's Video in a cool, dispassionate style that matches the austerity of his subject, but keeps us at a distinct remove. And even though he introduces a faintly optimistic note in the film's last moments -- a hint at possible redemption -- his film is mostly a grim, downbeat experience. [01 Apr 1994, p.C3]

Time Out London Staff (Not Credited)

An unsettling if not entirely successful social-cum-psychological drama. As a study in the complex relationship between violence and cinema, it's an unsensational alternative to Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer and Man Bites Dog. Read full review

Jonathan Rosenbaum

Overly familiar in its themes, though still somewhat potent in its depiction of an alienated 14-year-old boy from a well-to-do family who's preoccupied with video technology and winds up commiting a monstrous act. In some ways, the portrait of his parents is even more chilling. Read full review

Eric Henderson

Benny’s Video is a smug, contemptuous, passive-aggressive attack on the dehumanizing effects of media, without even the common decency to offer shrill sensationalism to punch up its subsequently feckless, reactionary, pomo assertions. Read full review

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User Reviews

ZaganEDF

Jan 9, 2021

This is a depiction of pure evil. Benny really has no reasons for what he's doing. He is just the way he is.

Really liked how the reality and the depiction of the reality are all mixed up and how powerful Benny is in creating that depiction. He even made his parents part of it. They stoppedThis is a depiction of pure evil. Benny really has no reasons for what he's doing. He is just the way he is.

Really liked how the reality and the depiction of the reality are all mixed up and how powerful Benny is in creating that depiction. He even made his parents part of it. They stopped living in the reality and started living in the depiction of it as benny envisioned it.

The act of killing itself is not important here. Benny has his own reality to create. He's like god. And he succeed.

My second favorite Haneke movie after Funny Games.… Expand

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JeBjBo

Apr 21, 2022

This is so unsettling. I do think that the pacing drops somewhere after the midpoint but this film is a mean, cold character study.

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