High Tension

October 24, 2005

HIGH TENSION

In a time when the motion picture industry skews marketing at any means necessary in order to attract a specific target audience, here comes a film whose very title is the ultimate truth in advertising. “High Tension” is exactly as its title proclaims, a near-breathless, uninterrupted study in unquenchable terror that knows just what the horror genre is all about, and puts those elements to use in a overbearing arrangement of suspense and dread.

Marie and Alex are classmates and best friends. Hoping to prepare for their college exams in peace and quiet, they decide to spend a weekend in the country at Alex’s parents’ secluded farmhouse. Nevertheless, in the dead of night, a stranger knocks on the front door. In addition, with the first swing of his knife, the girls’ idyllic weekend turns into an endless night of horror.

The film takes place mainly within Alex’s family home, an isolated farmhouse in the middle of a fully-grown cornfield. The clothes they wear and model of car tell you the movie depicts modern times. The movie is dubbed from the French version of Haute Tension, so as you are watching the characters talk, their mouths do not match the words you hear. That is not much of a problem, since the majority of the movie someone is screaming or trying to be quiet.

The movie is cheaply made because you will not see many special effects or camera tricks. The lighting is most by moonlight or dim lamps. A lot of the film is shot in near dark so you see many shadows. The director chose to use little or no music during most scenes. You really feel like you are chased because of the detail of sounds, such as a squeaky floorboard or the sound of Marie panting as she sneaks around the killer. When the guy kills the family, you hear them make guttural sound, outcry, or plead.

High Tension is one of the goriest movies I have seen in a while. During each kill, you see blood explosions. You see heads decapitated from their bodies. You will observe the killer using a variety of weapons to end life, such as a dresser, gun, shaving razor, saw, and of coarse, the ax. Each kill furnished blood by the buckets.

One slaying that remains with me is the first murder…the killer knocks on the front door late at night. Alex’s father answers, only to have his throat slashed. As he struggles around the room gasping for life, the killer breaks and enters the front door. The bloodstained man tries to go up the staircase when the killer grasps him and overpowers his head through the balusters. He struggles to pull his head back through, but he is trapped. The killer gazes around for his weapon of choosing. The killer guides the dresser into position…and with an abrupt push, he shears the man’s head clean off. Blood gushes out as the heart continues to beat it last few pulses.

I enjoyed the simplicity of the film. Watching the film made me feel like someone was going to come to my door and commence to slaughtering. The movie has a twist so bad in the end, that you will say, “no way”. What I did not like was the way they mislead you right from the start. After you have watched the film, you will start to analyze it. There is no way things could have happened, as they wanted you to think. They show you Marie’s dream, which is rather telling the ending. They show the killer pull up in the cornfield in his old rusty panel van after finishing off his last kill before going to Alex’s farmhouse. You will be confused by this scene because it appears to have sexual content going on, but he throw a woman’s