High Tension

Director: Alexandre Aja
Genre: Horror/Thriller
Year: 2003

For starters, allow me to say that you should not watch this movie while eating cold pizza. Or eating anything for that matter…not very conducive to the appetite. Really.

With that out of the way, I should also disclose that slasher films are not my favorite, not necessarily because I can not stomach them (I have seen things in film that can be pretty damned disturbing), but because most of the time, slasher films rely on their ultra-violence for shock value and little else. I am willing to accept there is a place for this type of film and that they do have their own cult following, which means that somebody out there is actually going to like this film. Not me though.

It does not start off too bad, honestly, setting the story at a remote location in rural France where two young college girls, Marie (Cecile de France; The Spanish Apartment) and Alex (Maïwenn Le Besco; The Fifth Element), are heading to take some time away from the busy urban life to focus on their studies. They are welcomed by Alex’s family in the middle of the night, out in a farm that is too far from neighbors, let alone civilization. That is when things go wrong, unexpectedly an uninvited guest makes his presence known in a most gruesome fashion and proceeds to eliminate the family members one, by one, unaware that Marie has alluded him. When the shock sets in and Marie gains the upper hand over her role of victim, she opts to go after her tormentor with a vengance.

Trailing from one senseless moment of violence to the next, failing to truly capture the power of an implied moment and instead giving us the gory details that are less than believable due to make up that comes close but fails to convince. The film gets off to a rocky start, but soon hits an interesting pace when there are ultimately three characters left and the story becomes a captivating game of cat and mouse. Suddenly, it would seem, this film finds its self and it goes from becoming a simple slasher story into an actually intriguing thriller that uses Cecile de France to great merit, making of her a believable heroine, both beautiful and powerful at once, capable of standing her own, believably. As the murders come to a crawl and the film develops into this suspenseful tale it nearly redeems itself…that is until you hit that ridiculous twist that makes Shyamalan look coherent. Everything falls apart.

In an effort to not ruin the film for those that might actually get something out of this, I will simply say that the trick this film employs is not only preposterous and impossible but down right insulting to the audience, expecting it to believe the unbelievable. We are unavoidably, completely manipulated and forced to accept a film that after this development fails to work no matter which way you cut it and it continues to surprise me that films this poorly written continue to make the circuit. That nobody in the production team realized this ending did not work in the least surprises me, and does speak volumes about the sorry state this genre happens to currently be in. I do not recommend this film at all, with a slow start and awful ending, the thrilling middle part is not worth your time or money.

Rating:
Comments: Expect some extreme violence and brief nudity. French language with English subtitles, though you also have the option of watching it with some pretty awful English dubbing (which in retrospect might make the movie more entertaining).
Quote: Alexia: The problem is, he’s got a girlfriend he doesn’t want to split up with.
Marie: Why are you so interested, then?
Alexia: Someone who’s taken must be worth it. I’m skeptical of single guys.