High Tension (2003)
Monday, March 13th, 2006
Directed by: Alexandre Aja
Screenplay by: Alexandre Aja, Gregory Levasseur
Cast: Cecile De France, Maiwenn Le Besco, Philippe Nahon, Franck Khalfoun, Andrei Finti, Oana Pellea
Runtime: 91 min
Rating: NC-17 (uncut version)
Trailer
The setup is tried and true; two friends drive into the French countryside to spend the weekend at a family home to study for their university exams in peace and quiet. There’s Marie (Cecile De France) and Alex (Maiwenn Le Besco), both good looking and fairly intelligent. They talk about boys, sex and their problems at school - all conventional horror movie devices. They arrive at Alex’s family farmhouse where her younger brother, a cute boy in a cowboy hat, greets them. The family dog wags his tail as the mother and father open their arms and welcome them into their home. At night, the home is visited by a foul and unnamed trucker (Philippe Nahon) in grubby overalls who storms into the house to begin butchering the family. And butcher he does. First, the dog is killed (always a truly reprehensible crime in film), then the dad is decapitated, the mother is stabbed and then gets her throat cut, and finally, Alex gets chained and gagged in her room to await her demise. Marie meanwhile, after hearing all the commotion in the house, hides under the bed and evades the killer, who doesn’t know that she’s in the house to begin with. He’s going by a family picture in the living room that, obviously, doesn’t show Marie. Wait, I forgot one more killing; remember that cute kid with the cowboy hat? Yeah, well he gets it to. He’s chased outside by the killer and is shot down in a field a couple of yards away from the house. This is supposed to be a horror movie?
High Tension is nothing more than a sadistic and gruesome excuse to fulfill director Aja’s morbid fascination with forcing an audience to watch characters horribly killed on-screen. I highly doubt that he’s making a statement on the horror genre and the fascination we have as a society with the macabre. That would be implying there was some reason behind this exercise when it obviously doesn’t exist. After unsuccessfully trying to free Alex from her room, Marie ends up hitching a ride in the killer’s truck, unbeknownst to the killer himself. That’s about it for the plot. The rest of the film is basically a rehash of the beginning except it takes place in different locations: a gas station, the woods, a car, and finally a horribly miscalculated twist ending that completely derails any chance of credibility the film might have had.
I’m not one to shy away from a good horror movie, even if it’s not necessarily an intelligent horror movie; it just has to deliver scares. And for sometime during the beginning, before the slaughter starts, the film completely works as it builds the mood and setting of the story. Aja’s direction is slick to be sure but it does suck you into the film quickly and forces you to look at the images, which are beautifully photographed by cinematographer Maxime Alexandre. Even during the killing, when Marie realizes what’s happening, she begins to quietly get her room organized so as not to give the appearance that she’s in the house. That’s pretty smart and rarely done in horror movies, especially when the character is a woman. She packs her bags, makes the bed, cleans the sink (even making sure there’s no trace of water on edge of the faucet), and hides under the bed. A scene like that speaks well of the film and its attempt at bringing a heightened sense of realism, and appropriately enough fits a film named High Tension. Aja’s camera loves to stay close on Marie’s face, easily creating a claustrophobic sense of doom as it captures all of Marie’s silent screams, and places the audience right along side her, implicating us in the horrors that may be around the corner or just on the other side of the closet door. You can’t help but be on the edge of your seat, which is why when the carnage starts, and doesn’t let up, you begin to feel offended with the complete lack of subtlety used in filming the killings.
The twist at the end, which I won’t spoil in case anyone cares to watch the film, doesn’t work at all. It’s not dissimilar to the countless trick endings we’ve been given over the years but unlike the ending of The Usual Suspects, which begs you to revisit the film to better understand, and spot, the subtleties, High Tension’s twist is so laughably bad as to defy logic. Knowing the twist and re-watching the film (which I don’t recommend, just take my word for it) is an exercise in spotting plot holes the size of a Buick. If you’re to take the ending at face value and that nothing is at it seems, when you apply it to everything that transpired before the twist, the film falls flat on its ass and proves that Aja and the screenwriters had no idea what they were doing, trying instead to tack on an ending with substance to a film that doesn’t deserve any. Aside from containing some sequences of terror and suspense, including a frightening cat-and-mouse encounter at a gas station, the overall result is nothing more than a repulsive and, strangely enough, homophobic excuse to wallow in its own perverse and self gratifying nonsense.
Richard X
© Cinephile Magazine, 2006
