With a title like “High Tension”, this movie had better deliver, right? Well fear not, horror fans, this is one grizzly thrill ride you won’t soon forget. Granted, the state of horror movies has been less than great lately, so it may sound like a backhanded compliment to proclaim “High Tension” the scariest, most nerve-rattling movie I’ve seen in years, but that is not the intention. Writer/director Alexandre Aja’s plot may not always make sense, and his characters may not have the degree of depth that they could, but the film almost always gives audiences something worth being on edge about, all the while referencing classic slasher movies (“Halloween”, “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre”) and their conventions that we’ve come to love and loath. The result is a brutally fresh and unexpected take on the genre that desperately needed a jolt of life in the midst of all its death dealing.
The story is a semi-familiar one, but built on the psychological foundation appropriate for a French 1970s horror throwback made in this post-Tarantino era. It begins with two college girls, Marie (Cecile De France) and Alexia (Maiwenn Le Besco), on their way to Alexia’s parent’s country house for a relaxing time of studying and visiting with the family. Things are quiet and quaint just long enough to make us begin to forget what this movie is called, but we don’t have to wait too long for things to get going…
In the middle of the night, the unsuspecting home is invaded and terrorized by a psycho killer truck driver who looks like a big smelly, older Michael Moore. The killer moves with methodical cool, strolling into rooms, straight razor in hand, and slashing his victims without missing a beat. Alexia is taken hostage with Marie her only hope of being rescued. Marie, paniced and hidden away during the bloodshed, at first makes the kind of rookie errors that many audience members don’t have patience for (though I wonder how they’d do in the same situation). Fortunately, this is Marie’s movie, and being that she has a serious crush on Alexia, passion drives her to an eventual bloody showdown with the big nameless sicko. But just when you think you’ve seen it all, Aja and co-writer Grégory Levasseur have a few genuine surprises up their collective sleeve. By the time we arrive at the requisite scene of the screaming girl being chased through the woods by the buzzsaw-wielding lunatic, this movie has completely jumped the rails, and I mean that in the best, most harrowed horror movie fan way.
If “High Tension” has any downsides besides its debatably holey plot and its barely-developed characters (both forgivable elements in a visceral horror movie such as this), the biggest one is the baaaad voice-over dubbing peppered throughout the film. I’m talking Godzilla-movie bad. Interestingly, when the intensity is really jacked up later in the film, it thankfully switches to subtitles, and seeing how this film is primarily one jacked-up intense scene after another, that’s how it stays for over half the running time. I can’t recall any other foreign films being handled in this manner for their domestic release. The other thing is that even though this is still the biggest cinematic kick to the skull so far this year, it’s pretty obvious that cuts were made to a few of the gorier scenes. I only hope that when the R1 DVD arrives, these issues will be rectified. It’s only too bad that in this day and age we must rely on a home video release over the traditionally intended destination, the cinema screen, to provide the truest version of a film.
I hope it goes without saying by now that “High Tension” is NOT for the squeamish. It’s the kind of movie where everyone in the audience walks out of the theater feeling glazed over and gut punched (and again, I mean that in best possible way). I’ve heard that the young filmmaker wanted to recapture that missing sensation in movie going, and boy did he ever. It’s only fitting that he’s the guy behind an upcoming remake of the perennial 1970’s Wes Craven shocker “The Hills Have Eyes” (high on the list of most disturbing films I’ve ever seen). This film did what “Saw” and so many other recent wannabes have promised but failed at delivering. “High Tension” will be debated for numerous reasons, but no one will leave the theater in a relaxed state. No WB teen stars or forced oh-so-hip rock music here. Just like Marie with her barbed wire wrapped phallic hunk of wood, “High Tension” delivers serious blows.
- Jim Tudor