High Tension (Haute Tension)

[Shitface]

Directed by Alexandre Aja

When you think about French cinema, gore films don't exactly come to mind. However, the idea was intriguing enough to have master of horror, Wes Craven, reserve a seat—even though he didn't show up—at the screening which was held at the City of Lights City of Angels French film festival in LA. Directed by Alexandre Aja, the son of director Alexandre Arcady, High Tension is an intense slasher movie about a psychopathic farmer who goes on a rampage—one thing that will certainly reassure French amateurs of the genre is that French rednecks are apparently as dangerous and primitive as their American counterparts.

High Tension is shot in gritty desaturated colors. From beginning to end, the director does a solid job of building and sustaining the tension, even though he doesn't offer anything original enough to reinvent the genre. The most interesting part of his work, however, can be found somewhere else: at the soundtrack level. In the first third of the film, as he slowly crafts his web of terror around the isolated house where the gruesome slaughter of a family will take place, he uses various sounds—metallic, industrial and natural—to make us cringe. Aja cultivates psychological terror with details such as the sound of a window and never really showing the face of the killer, slowly raising our consciousness that something is going to happen, teasing the audience with a long setting—a process that is clearly reminiscent of Sergio Leone's opening in Once Upon A Time In The West.



However, as soon as the shocking act of barbarism has taken place, the film loses this uniqueness to go for the usual—though well directed—cat-and-mouse game, before finally collapsing with an absurd final twist. High Tension "unofficially" ends with the family murder, in the first half of the film, and Aja clearly looks like a filmmaker who knows how to create a premise but is not able to convert it into a full feature film. Since Paul Verhoeven and Joe Eszterhas reintroduced the concept to the masses with Basic Instinct, twists have become uninspired screenwriters' favorite sleuths. They sometimes work beautifully—Usual Suspects—or can be playful—Identity—but here it isn't the case. Aja's ending is cheap and plainly idiotic because the director doesn't make the effort to build it. There is no logic to it, and if you think about the events that preceded it, you realize that it doesn't make any sense at the narrative level.

High Tension is purely a work of mise-en-scene and acting. While Cécile de France has been noticed for her presence, more impressive is, once again, this latest incarnation by Phillipe Nahon, this time as a serial killer. The actor who both fascinated and disgusted us as the butcher in I Stand Alone & Irreversible proves he is the most menacing presence in today's French cinema, and the real epicenter of tension in this film.

~ Fred Thom


I think it looks amazing. It's been out in France since 2003, and coming to theatres in the US in early 2005. The movie pays homage to many great horror movies, like there's this scene where the two ladies are hiding out in a greenhouse that looks like the one from the movie Alien. It's very, very gorey, so it recieved an NC-17 rating. I'm looking forward to it.

[GorePhobia]

im still looking forward in seeing it....in France it was NC-17 im hopping it'll be this here also....most likely not....most likely R

[slasherman]

Is this "Switchblade Romance" ?

[zwoti]

Originally posted by slasherman
Is this "Switchblade Romance" ?

yes

[slasherman]

Originally posted by zwoti
yes

hmmm gonna see this as soon as possible....my parents dosent have DVD player...i'm soon in my apartment in Oslo :D

[zwoti]

i have it as an avi......but no bloody subtitles

[ichi the killer]

I got an import from thailand with bad dubbing. Quite liked it but the endings nonsense the more you think about it the stupider it gets.

[majorbludd]

i gotta see this french flick....im sure most of you seen irriversible....if not check it out.....it'll change you....i seen some stills of tension...lots of blood...reminiscent of "maniac"...............this is my first actual post...later

[slasherman]

Disappointing !

"Spoiler"
A very stupid quasi twist ending......some nice gore scenes but overall a bad slasher....
My dvd has a english dub version and a frensh version....a saw the frensh.....