Overall Rating
 Awesome: 17.56%
Worth A Look: 30.53%
Just Average: 16.03%
Pretty Crappy: 16.79%
Sucks: 19.08%
9 reviews, 77 user ratings
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| High Tension |
by Mel Valentin
"A nasty piece of work strictly for slasher fans."
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"High Tension," a “new” French serial killer/slasher film (it was released in France two years ago) inspired by 70s American slasher films (as well as Dario Argento’s blood-spattered “giallo” films), is every bit as bloody and violent as its well-deserved “R” rating (for “graphic bloody killings, terror, sexual content, and language”). To get that “R” rating, however, Lions Gate and the director Alexandre Aja (thankfully) trimmed a minute of explicit violence from "High Tension." Even trimmed by only a minute, "High Tension" is a nasty piece of work, unrelenting, nihilistic, brutal, and often difficult to watch. It’s, in short, the perfect flick for slasher/horror fans with strong (or empty) stomachs.Marie (Cecile de France) and Alex (Maiwenn Le Besco), university classmates and friends, retreat to a rural farm owned by Alex’s family. Marie and Alex plan on spending their weekend studying for university exams. The relationship between Marie and Alex is spiked with conflict and jealousy, as well as unspoken desire. At the farm, Marie meets Alex’s family, her mother (Oana Pellea), father (Andrei Finti), and young brother, Tom (Marco Claudiu Pascu). After a quiet evening together, the family goes to bed. Marie stays up, listening to music over headphones. A beat up truck drives up to the farm. A middle-aged man in dirty overalls and a grungy baseball cap ((Phillipe Nahon) emerges from the truck. The father answers the doorbell. The nightmare (and the hacking, slicing, and slashing) begins. One of the two women will become what genre enthusiasts (and academics) refer to as the "last girl": the last survivor faced with the daunting task of confronting the serial killer, defeating him conclusively, and saving her friend, with her only with her ingenuity, will to live, and whatever farm implement happens to be within reach for help.
Alexandre Aja, working from a taut, streamlined script co-written with Gregory Levasseur, directs every scene for maximum, visceral impact, whether in creating or sustaining suspense (a lengthy scene inside a gas station deserves special mention, as does a later chase scene on an abandoned highway), or in the Grand Guignol set pieces, where Aja’s makeup technicians display unerring skill in depicting the aftereffects of the slasher’s handiwork. Although several of the more bloody, violent scenes have been trimmed for content, those edits have been limited to penetration shots (the audience still sees the before and after of each blow, in gruesome detail). The static-filled music score by Francois Eudes serves to create an unsettled, unsettling mood, perfect for a tightly wound slasher flick. And, of course, the homage to American slasher flicks seems to permeate every frame, culminating in a scene that pays direct tribute to The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
Unfortunately, Aja and Levasseur weren’t satisfied with making a straightforward slasher. If they had, High Tension would have stood a chance of becoming a “cult classic” in short order. Instead, Aja and Levasseur indulge in a patently absurd third-act plot turn that completely undermines and overturns the premise (and makes the events that follow superfluous). Note to Aja and Levasseur: next time, don’t borrow a major plot turn from a well known, if controversial, Hollywood film released in the last five or six years. Aja, in conjunction with Lions Gate, has also made the inexplicable decision to dub only part of High Tension into English (the early scenes with the family that precede the serial killer’s first attack). Frankly, the dubbing is atrocious (e.g., out-of-sync with mouth movements), and given that most of High Tension unfolds without dialogue, unnecessary.One minor issue is also worth mentioning: the press notes indicate that Marie and Alex are college students, but the actresses were closer to thirty than twenty at the time "High Tension" was produced. Their obvious age makes it difficult to accept them as anything but graduate students. There’s also a 20-year age difference between Alex and her younger brother that's also left unresolved. Viewers might be inclined to speculate that Alex is the brother's "real" biological mother, not his older sister (he, of course, would be unaware of that particular fact). That speculation, of course, is better left for another kindler, gentler slasher film (if one exists).
link directly to this review at https://www.hollywoodbitchslap.com/review.php?movie=8555&reviewer=402
originally posted: 06/10/05 01:42:22
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OFFICIAL SELECTION: 2004 Sundance Film Festival. For more in the 2004 Sundance Film Festival series, click here.
OFFICIAL SELECTION: 2004 SXSW Film Festival. For more in the 2004 South By Southwest Film Festival series, click here.
OFFICIAL SELECTION: 2004 San Francisco Indie Fest. For more in the 2004 San Francisco Independent Film Festival series, click here.
OFFICIAL SELECTION: 2004 Philadelphia Film Festival. For more in the 2004 Philadelphia Film Festival series, click here.
OFFICIAL SELECTION: 2004 Seattle Film Festival. For more in the 2004 Seattle Film Festival series, click here.
OFFICIAL SELECTION: 2004 Los Angeles Film Festival. For more in the 2004 Los Angeles Film Festival series, click here.
OFFICIAL SELECTION: 2004 City of Lights / City of Angels Film Festival. For more in the 2004 City of Lights / City of Angels Film Festival series, click here.
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USA
10-Jun-2005 (R)
DVD: 11-Oct-2005
UK
N/A
Australia
N/A
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