MOVIE REVIEW - High Tension (2003)
Director: Alexandre Aja
Starring: Cecile De France, Maiwenn, Philippe Nahon
College friends Marie and Alex are going to spend some time studying at Alex's family home in the country. But on the night they arrive a strange truck turns and the man driving proceeds to murder Alex's family whilst Marie hides. The killer kidnaps Alex and Marie follows.
My main problem with this movie is that for the first hour it follows closely to the story of Dean Koontz's 'Intensity' with absolutely no credit going to him. And in that first hour the movie is suitable tense and scary. But High Tension's killer is a different kind of machine to the almost OCD killer of Koontz's novel. Here is a man who is just messy, spilling and spraying blood without thought.
It plays like a homage to explotation slasher horror movies of the 70s. The remote locations, the use of knives/blades to kill, the copious amounts of blood and gore. This is definately not a movie for the squeamish, the death of the Alex's father alone is uncomfortably brutal.
As it seems with almost every horror-thriller in modern cinema there is a twist. A big twist. A big dumb twist. Which for me completely changed and ruined the movie. Up unto that point the movie is an excellent example of how a horror should be. It has scares, gore and oddles of tension that all lead upto a moment that is ultimately unsatisfying.
Looking back it could have worked even with the twist if they had handled it differently.
The Good: Very high tension, good performances for a horror
The Bad: Plagerism covered up with a dreadful twist
The Ugly: Blood, blood and more blood
Overall: Better than average horror. 6/10
Starring: Cecile De France, Maiwenn, Philippe Nahon
College friends Marie and Alex are going to spend some time studying at Alex's family home in the country. But on the night they arrive a strange truck turns and the man driving proceeds to murder Alex's family whilst Marie hides. The killer kidnaps Alex and Marie follows.
My main problem with this movie is that for the first hour it follows closely to the story of Dean Koontz's 'Intensity' with absolutely no credit going to him. And in that first hour the movie is suitable tense and scary. But High Tension's killer is a different kind of machine to the almost OCD killer of Koontz's novel. Here is a man who is just messy, spilling and spraying blood without thought.
It plays like a homage to explotation slasher horror movies of the 70s. The remote locations, the use of knives/blades to kill, the copious amounts of blood and gore. This is definately not a movie for the squeamish, the death of the Alex's father alone is uncomfortably brutal.
As it seems with almost every horror-thriller in modern cinema there is a twist. A big twist. A big dumb twist. Which for me completely changed and ruined the movie. Up unto that point the movie is an excellent example of how a horror should be. It has scares, gore and oddles of tension that all lead upto a moment that is ultimately unsatisfying.
Looking back it could have worked even with the twist if they had handled it differently.
The Good: Very high tension, good performances for a horror
The Bad: Plagerism covered up with a dreadful twist
The Ugly: Blood, blood and more blood
Overall: Better than average horror. 6/10
posted by Ozark at 8:36 AM
1 Comments:
Nice review. I just saw the movie myself, and was similarly disappointed by the ending. You can check out the review here.
Either they should've ditched the "twist" entirely or ended the movie abruptly after revealing Marie was the killer. Instead, the movie dragged on for another 20 minutes, trying to piece together the suspense and terror it'd accumulated for the first hour or so, but it came off lame. We know it's not the fat drunk Irishman, so why the hell is he on screen?
Anyway, good review.
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