Overall Rating
 Awesome: 17.83%
Worth A Look: 30.23%
Average: 15.5%
Pretty Bad: 17.05%
Total Crap: 19.38%
9 reviews, 75 user ratings
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| High Tension |
by Scott Weinberg
"Something old, something new, quite a bit borrowed...and a whole lotta gore"
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Given its reputation as a lofty and artistic entity, one might not expect to find too many horror flicks screening at the Sundance Film Festival. This year, at least, you'd be dead wrong.Horror movies are, for the most part, sneered at and dimissed as mild diversions (at best) cinematic junk food (at worst). Yet one could quite capably argue that creating an effective horror movie is actually harder than mounting a dramatic piece or a bedroom farce - becuase while other films are content to present character studies or well-timed flurries of humor, the horror film is out to make you feel uneasy. The ones that can pull it off consistently for 90-some minutes are worthy of high marks indeed.
And despite a few niggling roadblocks (and a wild plot divergence that seems to make very little sense...at first glance), the slasher flick from France known as Haute Tension (that's High Tension for those of us not from Quebec, and Switchblade Romance to folks in other English-speaking nations) proves to be quite the dastardly dark and entertaining jolt-fest...if, of course, you don't mind your "cat & mouse thriller"s a little on the 'outlandishly gory' side.
The plot is simplicity itself: Marie and Alex are two adorable young French women who show up at the Family Farmhouse to enjoy a quiet vacation away from school. Not three hours after the girls arrive, a hulking and sweaty aggressor rings the front doorbell and promptly cracks a huge hole in Daddy's head, thus beginning a 70-some minute nightmare from Hunter to Hunted...with a few unpredictable rest stops along the way.
Suffice to say that Haute Tension offers generous doses of hiding, a fair share of seeking, a whole lot of chasing, and six or seven grimly enjoyable dispatches for the Gorehounds to enjoy. I can already see the fine folks at Lion's Gate priming Haute Tension for a R-rated theatrical release and an Unrated DVD release; there's no way the version I saw could escape the MPAA with anything less than an NC-17; so the heavy stuff goes bye-bye for a few months, and then we can enjoy the Haute Tension DVD the way it was meant to be seen: with huge geysers of gore, and with one of the most stunningly unsettling beheadings I've ever had the pleasure to see in a horror film. [Note: I was wrong! Lions Gate is reportedly going ahead with an NC-17 release. Good for them!]
[Dean Koontz fans take note: Though I'd never be one to accuse a young filmmaker of stealing ideas from a pre-existing work, it's plainly clear that there's a stunning similarity between much of Haute Tension and Koontz's best-seller Intensity. The author almost seems to deserve a 'story by' credit!]
Visually, Haute Tension a grimy, gooey treat. The settings are sparse and deserted, the kills are graphic and grotesque, and there's a palpable sense of grungy intensity and desperation that helps seal the deal as a whole. Upstart director Alexandre Aja clearly grew up on the finest slasher flicks that the 1980s had to offer, and his affection for the genre shines clearly through. From the gloomy and nasty little sound effects to the heaping helpings of slick, grimy grue (and all of the breathless moments of silence in between), Aja touches upon many of the horror fans' most beloved components. (Not the least of which is a massive man-monster who wields a mean axe.)The end result is a flick that's hardly a classic (and it's far from the most unique story ever told), but one that should absolutely have the Gorehounds squealing contentedly with delight. And there's that "one" moment...the one that will cause huge debates and internet discussion for months to come...but I can't say any more about that...not until everyone else has the movie, anyway.
link directly to this review at http://www.efilmcritic.com/review.php?movie=8555&reviewer=128
originally posted: 01/29/04 13:40:59
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OFFICIAL SELECTION: 2004 Sundance Film Festival. For more in the 2004 Sundance Film Festival series, click here.
OFFICIAL SELECTION: 2004 SXSW Film Festival. For more in the 2004 South By Southwest Film Festival series, click here.
OFFICIAL SELECTION: 2004 San Francisco Indie Fest. For more in the 2004 San Francisco Independent Film Festival series, click here.
OFFICIAL SELECTION: 2004 Philadelphia Film Festival. For more in the 2004 Philadelphia Film Festival series, click here.
OFFICIAL SELECTION: 2004 Seattle Film Festival. For more in the 2004 Seattle Film Festival series, click here.
OFFICIAL SELECTION: 2004 Los Angeles Film Festival. For more in the 2004 Los Angeles Film Festival series, click here.
OFFICIAL SELECTION: 2004 City of Lights / City of Angels Film Festival. For more in the 2004 City of Lights / City of Angels Film Festival series, click here.
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USA
10-Jun-2005 (R)
DVD: 11-Oct-2005
UK
N/A
Australia
N/A
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