>>REVIEW
HIGH TENSION
Starring Cécile De France, Maïwenn and Philippe Nahon
Directed by Alexandre Aja
Opens
Check listings
High Tension could be the best slasher film I have ever seen. It has stiff competition (Halloween, Psycho, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre), but it knows it, so the question isn’t whether horror buffs will like the film, but how much.
The premise is simple and chilling. Marie (Cécile De France) joins her friend Alex (Maïwenn) and her family for a weekend getaway at a remote country farmhouse. Hours after everyone goes to bed, a mysterious truck pulls up and a creepy, overall-wearing man (Philippe Nahon) gets out to knock at the door. Within moments he has forced himself inside and, armed with a straight razor, sets about systematically killing everyone in the house.
It’s the kind of movie you have seen before, but director Alexandre Aja’s deliberate framing, methodical pacing and ingenious death scenes set High Tension apart. That’s not to say that this film relies solely on blood and guts (despite the much publicized NC-17 rating in the U.S.). Some of the most chilling sequences are successful not because they show the gore, but because they show Marie’s reaction as she secretly watches the killer at work. It’s this balance of horror and suspense that allows High Tension to live up to its name. The film is so frightening, in fact, that even when it starts to sink into typical thriller territory, the fact that the relentless tension has finally lifted, even momentarily, is welcome relief rather than a flaw with the film.
In the end there are only two things about the film that are sketchy and both of them are forgivable, depending on personal taste. The film is French, and for the North American release the filmmakers have opted to release a mostly dubbed version. There are a few sequences that are subtitled, but for the most part the film has some pretty passable vocal sync work. But High Tension, like most good horror films, doesn’t have a lot of dialogue, so unless you are a true purist you will probably be too scared to notice. The second problem is a bit more frustrating. After about 70 minutes of slasher excellence, High Tension tacks on a twist ending that is so stock and so inconsistent that it completely took me out of the film. There are a few chills left in the closing scenes, but none of it resonates the way the first half of High Tension does.
Still, it’s tough to tell if the ending is weak, or if it just seems weak compared to the rest of the film. Either way, it doesn’t change the fact that High Tension scared me so much I could hardly breathe. It’s not your run-of-the-mill killer-on-the loose movie – and for that, it comes highly recommended. |
Copyright ©2005 FFWD. All rights reserved.