High Tension

High Tension (Haute Tension) (2003)

Runtime: 91 minutes

Directed by: Alexandre Aja

Starring: Cecile de France, Maiwenn, Philippe Nahon, Andrei Finti, Franck Khalfoun

From: EuropaCorp

Or: I’ve never liked those “New Wave French Horror” movies from the early 2000’s. Not all were seen by any means but this was ruined by a truly awful final 10 minutes before the credits, Frontier(s) was pretty loathsome all around and “simply unpleasant trash” is what I call both Martyrs & Inside. I know many will vehemently disagree-that’s fine, I’ll be happy watching motion pictures that don’t rely on gruesome gore or “transgressive moments” to shock and titillate.

As I’ve never addressed this on Letterboxd in any detail, that was the man impetus to finally give this a rewatch after all this time; I believe the first and only was in like ’05 or ’06. What I saw came from the bowels of the Internet: it was the original cut that most of the world got and in fact came out on disc in the United States, but the US edited out a bit to earn an R rating. For some reason that’s the version that’s available streaming, so to the seas I sailed…

The thing is, the first 77 minutes has its flaws for sure and some dumb moments, yet overall it has its share of merits. A pair of young women (Marie and Alexia) who aren’t always likable leave college so they can go to one of their parents’ house in the middle of the woods for the sake of studying. Suddenly a hulking brute shows up and he’s a brutal serial killer who does many abominable things. Marie tries to save her bestie and avoid the bad guy. The journey includes plenty of time outside the house and includes a trip to a gas station, ran by a future director of yet another massively overrated film-Franck Khalfoun.

Graphic gore isn’t an automatic turn-off for me so how plentiful it is plays no part in my rating. Of course, the gnarliest death is the most preposterous, made even worse once the twist is revealed. Honestly, those that watch this for the first time should press “stop” once it reaches 1:17:00 as that’s when the movie takes a nosedive. That twist is truly insulting; no matter how you spin it or try to rationalize what the audience had just seen, at least for me it was a giant middle finger. It ruins what I thought was a fine slasher due to the writers acting all smug and thinking they are OH so clever for subverting expectations… barf. If the dross that was the conclusion wasn’t bad enough, it has a message which whether intended or not is pretty gross—especially by 2022 standards. Some people on Letterboxd have in fact stated as such.

No hate on anyone who likes the movie overall; unfortunately there’s too much for me to dislike. I’ll just shrug my shoulders and at least note that the other two Aja films I’ve seen (Crawl and Piranha 3D) I enjoyed quite a bit more. I don’t know what I’d think of something like Mirrors or The 9th Life of Louis Drax…