High Tension (or as it's known in Europe-Haute Tension) is a French horror picture that's been garnering strong buzz since it's stateside debut at the Sundance Film Festival a couple of years ago. Many have proclaimed it a striking return to the horror genre, but being a fan of this particular genre, I never try to get my hopes up. I decided to check my expectations at the door when I was invited to a special advance screening, even though I had heard praise from friends who had seen it at Sundance. Whatever I did, it definitely worked, because it made the experience much more enjoyable.

High Tension features friends Alex (Maiwenn Le Besco) and Marie (Cecile De France), as two young women on a road trip. Their destination; Alex's parents' house - a remote ranch in the middle of the French countryside. Upon their arrival, they are greeted with open arms by Alex's family, but rather suddenly this happy vacation turns into a horrifying nightmare. During their first night at the ranch, a sadistic intruder breaks into the home and goes on a violent, bloody rampage. What follows is an incredibly intense game of cat and mouse, and a taut tale of survival.

First and foremost, let me tell you where I feel director/screenwriter Alexandre Aja and co-writer Gregory Levasseur get this moody, atmospheric, horrifying thriller right. They opt to deliver pure horror. Not once does High Tension spend a moment of winking slyly at the audience. Sure, this picture was inspired by everything from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre to Halloween, but it doesn't pay it's homage in a playful manner. High Tension is an exercise in pure, unbridled terror that goes for the jugular and never relents. When the killer wreaks havoc early on in this movie, I was mortified. Right out of the gate, it was perfectly clear that none of the characters in this movie would be safe, and it was also clear that there would be scarce a ray of light.

High Tension is beautifully shot. Aja and crew use their eerie locations to the very best advantage (reminding me of both Anthony Waller's little seen Mute Witness and Stanley Kubrick's often seen The Shining). The film is extremely dark and for most of it's running time is punctuated by an unsettling sense of dread. One of my favorite sequences features a character hiding from the killer in a public restroom. It seems no matter where this person hides, the killer is only one step behind them. The entire sequence reminded me of moments of other pictures (Witness for one) but I really got caught up in it. For the first time in a long time, I really enjoyed being scared.

Unfortunately, High Tension can't resist treading familiar terror-tory in a final act that sort of hinders everything that came before it. And if you reflect upon the rest of High Tension when the film gets to this point, you will find that there are several things that just don't make sense. I refuse to give away what I'm referring to (I will say it reminded me of an awful Rebecca DeMornay movie), but upon reading reviews written by others who have seen the film, I find that I'm not alone. When High Tension takes this ridiculous detour, I just kind of shook my head. I had a sneaking suspicion early on that the movie might switch gears. A scene at the beginning of the film openly suggests where it might be headed. Still, I had hoped the film makers wouldn't go there. This twist is pointless and completely unnecessary, not to mention nonsensical beyond belief.

While High Tension sputters out a bit in the final act, I was still won over by it's sheer craftsmanship. This movie has genuinely scary moments, and on several occasions, I could feel the hair on the back of my neck standing on end. And gore hounds are treated to the goods by the bucketful.
High Tension is a slasher roller-coaster ride executed to near perfection, and not until the end do we realize that this scarefest is trying to give us insight into who this killer is and what makes him tick (something it fails to do as effectively as, say, Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer or Identity). But it in a way, it is this aspect of the picture that keeps it from reaching it's full potential. Not knowing what makes the boogeyman tick is what makes him so scary.