Plot
Two college friends, Marie and Alexa, encounter loads of trouble (and blood) while on vacation at Alexa's parents' country home when a mysterious killer invades their quiet getaway.
Release Year: 2003
Rating: 6.8/10 (29,667 voted)
Critic's Score: 42/100
Director:
Alexandre Aja
Stars: Cécile De France, Maïwenn, Philippe Nahon
Storyline Alexia travels with her friend Marie to spend a couple of days with her family in their farm in the country. They arrive late and they are welcomed by Alexia's father. Late in the night, a sadistic and sick killer breaks into the farmhouse, slaughters Alexia's family--including their dog--and kidnaps Alexia. Marie hides from the criminal and tries to help the hysterical and frightened Alexia, chase the maniac, and disclose his identity in the end.
Writers: Alexandre Aja, Grégory Levasseur
Cast: Cécile De France
-
Marie
Maïwenn
-
Alexia
Philippe Nahon
-
Le tueur
Franck Khalfoun
-
Jimmy
Andrei Finti
-
Père Alex
Oana Pellea
-
Mère Alex
Marco Claudiu Pascu
-
Tom
Jean-Claude de Goros
-
Capitaine Gendarmerie
Bogdan Uritescu
-
Gendarme
Gabriel Spahiu
-
Homme voiture
Trivia:
Director Cameo:
[Alexandre Aja]
Alex's Father's legs.
Goofs:
Continuity:
The interior light of the yellow Ford during the car chase
Quotes: 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.
User Review
Craven and Hooper would be proud, unfortunately, so would Shyamalan.
Rating: 9/10
The 70's and 80's produced what I consider to be the best horror films
ever made. There were more independent films being made 20 and 30 years
ago and that led to less studio intervention. I seriously doubt Sam
Raimi could have made his classic gore fest THE EVIL DEAD if The
Weinsteins were behind the scenes. And I know for a fact that Tobe
Hooper would never have gotten away with what he did to make Texas
CHAINSAW MASSACRE as shock inducing as he did. And finally, what I
consider is the most disturbing film ever made, never would have been
made if guys like Michael Ovitz were behind it. Could you imagine if
Ovitz was visiting the set of LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT, took a look at
the dailies and then said, "okay, that intestine part has to go, the
slapping of the naked girls has to be trimmed down and the fellatio
part has to be edited." Last House would not be the classic that it is
today and it certainly would not be a paradigm to all horror films that
many aspire to make today.
Now, what we have are a plethora of films that follow in M. Night
Shyamalan's footsteps after his monster and genre defining hit SIXTH
SENSE. It's a great film that puts the suspense back in horror. And as
much as I love Sixth Sense, as much as I respect what Shyamalan has
done to help redefine horror, too many of today's film makers try to
emulate him and screw things up.
HIGH TENSION, for the first 80 minutes of the movie is a true testament
to the basic primal animal that we are, or can be. It is an
uncompromising and relentless attack of our senses, our nerves and our
being. It shreds the neo horror film ideology that THE RING and Sixth
Sense seemed to invent and instead grabs a hold of your intestines and
squeezes and then twists. It is about as intense of a film as I have
seen in quite some time. While not as sick and depraved as Last House
on the Left, it treads in the same water. This has the look and feel of
a 70's guts on the wall horror film and for that, I applaud Alexandre
Aja for writing and directing a film that looks like it had very little
studio intervention and as such the film is about as shocking a film as
you will see from any North American distributed film.
High Tension's strength is that it is about as violent and blood soaked
as any film from the period that it pays homage to. Gone is the horror
film blueprint that teens seem to love today. This is a film made by a
director that grew up perhaps admiring some of the greats from three
decades ago. You can see homages to films like Friday THE 13TH, MADMAN,
THE STEPFATHER, and of course Texas Chainsaw Massacre. There are at
least 4 scenes in this film that truly shocked me. The violence is
real, it is macabre and it is brutal. Blood spills, it flows, and it
sprays. I have never seen someone get their throat slit, but I would
imagine it would something like it does in this film.
The pace of the film is frenetic and at about the twenty minute mark,
the dialogue pretty much stops and what we have is a cat and mouse
game. Aja does his talking with chainsaws, barbed wire and a
switchblade. There is much attention to detail in this film and I guess
that sort of justifies the end, which is about as beguiling as any
legerdemain present in any of the films since Sixth Sense.
The ending has to be mentioned because as I'm sure many of you know by
now, the ending is unnecessary chicanery. It just didn't need to be
there. But to be fair, the film does allude to the road it is embarking
on, it just seems like an extrinsic path. The denouement of the film,
can be a distraction and take away from the raw emotion the film does a
great job of making you feel up until this point. And if you examine
the film, you'll realize that what you have seen for the last 80
minutes is pretty much impossible. I took all of that into
consideration before writing this review. And what it comes down to is
this: The films is so perfect before the preposterous ending, that you
can kind of ignore the impossibilities and chicanery. If you can just
see the film for all of its brilliance before the last ten minutes,
you'll love the pure terror that this film presents us with. But just a
word of warning. The ending is misleading and dishonest.
This film is an amalgamation of Last House and Sixth Sense. The twist,
which may have been attractive to the talking heads in charge of the
studio, also takes away from the artistic integrity of the film. I, as
other reviewers have mentioned, would much rather a psycho killer gone
mad than a film that has to deceive us with a SLEEPAWAY CAMP type slap
in the face. While Sleepaway Camp is a good film but not nearly in the
class of High Tension, the ending fit there. Here, it is just plain
wrong.
High Tension scores a 9/10 from me because it is about as good a horror
film I have seen in the last ten years. The last 10 minutes drags it
down to a 9 instead of a 10, but this film is raw, it is primal and it
is made with ingenuity and care and it is a true homage to the horror
films that I grew up with. This is truly a must see for any horror fan.
0