Benny's Video is a 1992 psychological horror movie directed by Michael Haneke. The second installment of Haneke's Glaciation Trilogy, Benny's Video stars Arno Frisch as the titular Benny, a fourteen-year-old teenager in Vienna whose obsession with videos and cameras isolates him from the rest of society, with Ulrich Mühe and Angela Winkler also starring as his parents.
This film provides examples of:
- All for Nothing: Anna and Georg try to cover up their son's crime, only for Benny to spill the beans at the end.
- Con Artist: Eva, Benny's sister, runs a Ponzi Scheme and makes good money off it.
- Gory Discretion Shot: Benny's murder is done just offscreen.
- Important Haircut: Benny shaves his head after murdering a random girl.
- Leaning on the Fourth Wall: One scene begins with Anna using the toilet. Almost immediately, Benny tries to break in the bathroom to record his mother with the camera. While Anna successfully kicks him out, she remains oblivious of the audience watching her from beyond the Fourth Wall.
- Left the Background Music On: Choir music plays while Benny walks to school before the movie transitions to a scene of some choir kids practicing their songs.
- Parental Neglect: From their very first appearance, Benny's parents don't spend much time with their children and only start paying closer attention to their son after he reveals to them that he killed someone.
- The Peeping Tom: Benny tries to record his mother in the bathroom.
- Proscenium Reveal: The opening sequence is revealed to be a recording when Benny rewinds the tape and replays the video in slow motion.
- Silent Conversation: Benny and the blond girl's conversation outside the video store is completely overshadowed by the ambient noise.
- The Sociopath: The titular character is confirmed to be this when he coldly murders someone with a cattle gun.
- Teens Are Monsters: After watching some videos of farmers slaughtering pigs, Benny gets the idea to kill a person on camera to understand what it is like.
- Troubling Unchildlike Behavior: Benny is a fourteen-year-old who smokes cigarettes and kills people.
- You Bastard!: The main character is a voyeur who is curious about violence, kind of like the audience.
