High Tension (or Haute Tension, if we are using the French title) follows best friends Marie (Cecile de France) and Alex (Maïwenn) as they go to the latter's parent's house for the weekend. While there, a man appears and attacks the family, with Marie spending the greater part of the movie trying to either get help or defeat The Killer (Philippe Nahon) and save Alex.
This movie was at the forefront of the New French Extremity movement: French films that had excessive violence and explicit sexual imagery. Filled with all sorts of gore, and occasionally extreme sexual violence (which this film thankfully did not have), it was part of a movement of filmmakers that pushed the limits of what film allowed at the time, and there are still films today that are considered influenced by, if not a continuation of, this movement.
Now there is something to be said for the critic's view of violence in cinema. Is the filmmaker trying to say something? Is it necessary to the plot? Is there some sort of metaphor that the director/screenwriter is trying to use? In the case of this film, I think the answer is: Let's show some violence and it doesn't go any deeper than that.
I did not like this movie. Not because of the violence - I have seen worse, and there is something to be said for how well done the effects are for this film in that particular department - but because it doesn't make sense. There is a late twist - which the movie became famous for, though thankfully I had forgotten the spoiler before watching it - that doesn't make any sense. I don't mean they didn't set it up properly (there is actually a decent bit of foreshadowing for it), I mean that there are several scenes that absolutely do not work once you factor in that twist.
So much of the film just falls apart if you bother to look back on it. It's frankly astounding that it happens because this is a movie with so much thought put into it that for this twist - which creates so many different plot holes - to be used requires a complete divorcing of critical thinking. Even if we try to work with what is presented to us, maybe think of the film as having an unreliable narrator, it still doesn't cover up what we are shown - there are too many characters present for it to work.
The movie isn't completely without merit - our main actress is quite good, and the movie does have a few scenes with well-built tension, but that damn twist just undoes all of the work put into the rest of the film. And given the lack of scares in this film - it really does count on the gore to do most of its work - you have time to think about what doesn't work.
Maybe if they had wrapped up the movie about 10 minutes earlier? Or cut out a section of the post-reveal? I don't know, the movie is already a fairly short 95 minutes - a relentlessly paced 95 at that - but something needed to be changed.
It really is disappointing, as I have heard good things from multiple people about this one. I definitely would not recommend it - except maybe as a hate-watch, but there are better movies to do that with than this - and it took all of my energy to not reveal the twist because this movie doesn't deserve to be unspoiled. I don't even want to bump up its score for the craft and acting, because I worry that it might encourage someone to watch it despite that.
2.5 out of 10
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