High Tension

High Tension (Haute Tension) (2003)

Runtime: 91 minutes

Directed by: Alexandre Aja

Starring: Cecile De France, Maiwenn Le Besco, Philippe Nahon, Franck Khalfoun

From: Europa

Oh, this movie… for a long time I’ve heard about it and how it had an ending that turned people off as it was rather stupid and unnecessary. Me, I say that there are actually two twists that are likely to get people up in arms. I’ll tell you what the second twist is in a moment.

This French movie is about a pair of young ladies, Alexia (Maiwenn) and Marie (De France) who travel to the rural farm home of Marie’s family, in order to study for the weekend while experiencing peace and quiet. However, you soon see a big scary killer invade the house, and cause a lot of havoc (although some of it is REALLY preposterous to the point that it turned me off to the movie right there) and he ends up taking Marie. Alexia has to try and save her friend… and I’ll leave it right there.

I’ll give away the second twist right now, as it’s better off if you stop the movie 30 seconds before it actually ends. The final scene seems to imply that it was all a dream! What a giant middle finger to the audience that was so not needed I can only speculate as to why that was done.

I won’t give away what the first twist was; it takes place about 75 minutes in and it really changes things. I thought that the idea was actually interesting and if it would have been done well, it’d be a quality twist and it would have been something great and different for the horror scene. However, unlike many people (at least from what I’ve seen) I thought that the movie before that twist 75 minutes in, aside from some good moments and a few tense scenes, wasn’t all that great. There was the really preposterous stuff which just insulted my intelligence, and the fact that I didn’t really like any of the characters-even Alexia and Marie-is definitely a problem.

A shame, as the main idea was pretty cool and if done better I could have gotten behind some of the hype I’ve read about this throughout the years. Alas, I thought it did not come together and I really wish there wouldn’t have been so many dumb moments, especially if you think about the twist and how it makes what you saw the preceding 75 minutes rather impossible at times. As for the gore, it definitely delivers if you love seeing blood and guts on the screen. It’s just that at times I thought it was too much, that it was being done as a sick joke. I mean, it ended up getting rather ridiculous.

I’ll be back Saturday afternoon with another review.