Kala (Dead Time) Kala (Dead Time)
Oct
31
2005

FINAL HALLOWEEN UPDATE: HIGH TENSION DVD REVIEW

Posted by Canfield at 11:51am.

Posted in Film & DVD Reviews , Cult, Horror, Continental Europe & Russia, USA & Canada.

hightension.jpg

In a couple of hours I’ll take my kids trick or treating. In another couple I’ll settle down with a large group of friends to screen Night of the Lepus and Session 9. In short Halloween 2005 is drawing to a close and it’s been one of the best ever. I didn’t get to review everything I wanted. It’s ad to think of The Val Lewton, Bela Lugosi and Hammer Horror Series box sets, Dominion: The Exorcist Prequel and a number of other recent to DVD films I didn’t get to in time. But there was no way I was going to pass up a chance to review this one. It’s a film that has lovers and haters and I’m a firm believer in jumping straight into the fray. High Tension is a film of incredible highs and incredible lows. But is it really what the horror genre needs at this crucial time in film history?

HIGH TENSION
Lion’s Gate Home Entertainment

Ever glad to get a copy of movie you don’t even like all that much? I confess that my initial viewing of High Tension in it’s original French form (Haute Tension) about a year ago left me feeling like I needed to shower and not just to wipe off the blood. It seemed like a pointless exercise in voyeurism of the worst sort topped with a very bad ending. And yet the film stuck with me. When it was released in the states in a, I’m told, badly realized dubbed hybrid version, it received bad reviews, lukewarm box office and hardly seemed a candidate for the quality of DVD release it’s getting here. But on second viewing I now admit a certain begrudging fascination. High Tension is a film that certainly lives up to its’ title. Alexandre Aja has created a film that must provoke even as it ultimately fails to make sense but at least this DVD release reveals the weak link in the production and darned if it wasn’t producer Luc Besson.

According to supplemental materials on the DVD Besson agreed to back the film provided the ending was altered. His suggestion, that we learn the killer’s true identity some twenty minutes before the end of the film and not right at the end resulted in a severe mental whiplash for audiences who realized that a number of key point of view shots in the film made absolutely no sense given this enforced “revelation.” One has to give him kudos for backing what is essentially the first truly harrowing French film of it’s kind, but as good as parts of High Tension are the whole is deeply flawed. This isn’t just a critique of aesthetics but a reminder the reasons that extreme film deserves a place on the inner screens of moviegoers hearts and minds.

Look, I’m a fan of modern horror film. Read my Devil’s Rejects and House of Wax reviews. I liked both films with slight reservation but either one offers far more than High Tension. Along with their thrills and chills they provide a thoughtful glimpse into the grotesque worlds they create- High Tension fails to sustain that world. More clearly put, High Tension fails to lead the viewer to a place that belongs in that world and in effect repudiates that world to no effect leaving the viewer to think about psychological thrillers that leave you shocked to find yourself back in the theater, or your living room. And when you revisit those films it’s not just to encounter the world’s they create but to rethink the truth’s they expound; Session 9, the original The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Videodrome, Susperia. These are all extreme films that are extremely good.

High Tension is ostensibly a film about the obsessive power of love, about madness but it doesn’t really make those ideas felt, it simply poorly states them in the last twenty minutes of confused and less than compelling ending. Thus we spend our time thinking about how it could all possibly fit together instead of grappling with the themes. What could have been an above average thriller devolves into pretension. Another good film of this kind would be Oldboy which stands up to repeated viewing precisely because it emerges as a larger than life evocation of it’s themes and not just as a series of violent set pieces.

All that said Aja is clearly a master of suspense. The nail-biting kill and chase sequences in this film are top notch incorporating cold-blooded nods to the grand giallo past and lunges into the future of the horror genre just when it could use some non-Asian, non-American influence. This is a movie that takes it’ violence very seriously. The squeamish need not apply and the jaded are likely to be challnenged to think back to a time when they had a deeper reaction to such things than, Cooooooooool!” Cecile De France is simply magnificent in an exhausting role witching from helpless terror to mindless rage between heartbeats. And Phillipe Nahon, essentially recreating his role in The Butcher in Gaspar Noe’s I Stand Alone, is like an impossibly menacing glacier slowly and coldly crushing the world under sheer metaphysical weight. He is evil in the sense that other great movie monsters are evil. He can be nothing else. He is human only in the sense that he is the summation of all that is dark and violent in humanity.

If I remain uneasy it’s because I worry about the state of modern horror. It seems to me we are in danger of settling for great moments rather than great stories. In short what use is the power in this, or Cabin Fever, or the Texas Chainsaw remake put to? No doubt some of the images are unforgettable but the movies themselves seem to feed mainly the appetite for thrills and chills. Gone are the great themes, gone is the hope that horror genre may encourage us to wake up to the problem of evil, to combat it, to recognize it within and without and seek guidance. No, horror movies are, like most art forms that have become over commercialized, mere entertainment. High Tension will make you tense but it won’t make you look any deeper at yourself or the rest of the world.

The DVD extras are considerable. The DVD introduction by Aja and Levasseur is short and completely forgettable but the commentary is very revealing as are the many featurettes chronicling the making of. You also get both versions of the film.

At a time when we are hearing serious murmers about the death of film due to the home video market and soaring ticket prices can horror fans afford to hold in highest regard a film that is merely exciting?

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Reader Comments

  1. Kurt 11/01/2005 @ 7:45am

    I don’t know of anyone who holds “HIGH TENSION” in highest-regard. But as a piece of entertaining nihilistic voyeurism, it’s a pretty good ride. I didn’t much like the ending, but overall I give the film passing marks. It’s certainly worth a viewing, even if it will never be a ‘classic’...you could do oh so far worse in the horror genre today.

  2. sam 11/01/2005 @ 8:09am

    i loved this film. i guess i even somewhat high expectations for it since i’d heard the word-of-mouth, but the film just got me in the gut—until that cheesy final “revelation”. 20-minutes-to-the-end or not, it had no place in the film, which had been a simple but harrowing experience for me.

  3. Brakhage 11/01/2005 @ 8:46am

    I agree that the ‘twist’ did nothing other than render the movie a confused mess. It would have been nice to have had, oh, I don’t know, a story, but it was easily the best-photographed slasher film I’ve ever seen.

  4. KK 11/01/2005 @ 5:04pm

    I did not find the ending cheezy, this was a clever ending that did not leave the film closed (with a twist), but instead made you think, and wanted to see the film over again. This was by far the best horror film from 2004. France is today with Spain and Japan, the leading countries in the horror genre. Just saw Atomik Cirkus (not good), and have just got Saint Ange on DVD. Calvaire is on the way in the mail.

  5. Kurt 11/01/2005 @ 7:24pm

    Canfield: You may be missing a wider context here. High Tension does live up to its title even with the bad ending and lack of any sort of cerebral workout. There are other Horror movies out there (Audition, Dark Water, The Dead Tril..uh...quadrilogy, The Wickerman, A Tale of Two Sisters) that serve the purpose of great alegory/thought/etc. You could do far worse…

    Actually, High Tension falls into the same category as Mute Witness and The Thing...you want to just be in the mood the intensity of the experience. You don’t need any subtext to carry you through...Of course I always want every movie to be a masterpiece, but that is never going to be the case…

    (I really can’t believe I’m typing this, as I’m almost always on your side of the argument when it comes to ‘settling’ in the movies...but the horror genre (and almost all genres have levels of quality...I’m not expecting every fiml to )

  6. Kurt 11/01/2005 @ 7:25pm

    sorry about the garbled ending there...dunno what happened...but you get the idea…

  7. Jim 11/01/2005 @ 11:36pm

    The only review I know of that held this film in any kind of “high regard” was mine, on this very site. http://www.twitchfilm.net/archives/002307.html

    Not sure if I still agree with everything I wrote back then, but I did pick up this this DVD, and look forward to revisiting and re-evaluating this French gorefest.

  8. Jim 11/01/2005 @ 11:42pm

    The only review I know of that held this film in any kind of “high regard” was mine, on this very site. http://www.twitchfilm.net/archives/002307.html

    Not sure if I still agree with everything I wrote back then, but I did pick up this this DVD, and look forward to revisiting and re-evaluating this French gorefest.

    Dave - so what if Halloween is over, why not write about all those other DVDs anyway? I’d offer to cover the Hammer and Lewton sets for you, but I’ve got my hands full with actual work righht now, not to mention the new baby. But i’d love to know your thoughts on those DVDs!

  9. Jim 11/01/2005 @ 11:55pm

    Aw crap, accidently posted twice. Stupid Netscape browser tricked me...!

  10. tracy 11/02/2005 @ 4:38am

    I watched this last night, and while it was fun at points, I agree that it just didn’t do it for me all the way. The twist was clever, but its execution was all wrong. I needed explanations, and I didn’t get them. It was certainly a fun experience, though - full of “No, don’t do THAT!"s and “Not that way!"s, but I agree - if shock value is all I have to look forward to in horror movies (which has been true as of late), there’s a problem. Not that there’s anything wrong with movies that are pure shock and suspense, but sometimes I like to see a theme, and usually all the time I like the story to make sense. If they had just made a few adjustments or added a scene or two of short explanation, this could have been a great movie. As it stands, I rate it as OK.

  11. Josh 11/02/2005 @ 11:40am

    Umm, spoiler coming up…

    Not to get all PC on your asses, but on top of the extreme illogic of the film’s ending, it’s also extremely reactionary. Psycho lesbian strikes again. There’s your subtext. Or I guess it’s really just text. Beyond that, it makes about as much sense as Donald Kaufman’s serial killer flick pitch. And there’s no justification for a point-of-view shift that shows the cops looking at surveillance camera footage and revealing the deep dark mystery. People complain about these trick endings all the time these days, and rightly so, but unlike the twist endings of Saw, The Village, the excellent Tale of Two Sisters, etc, this one really doesn’t make any sense at all, ruining the film on many levels.

    That said, the guy obviously has some talent, and I’m kind of looking forward (half anticipation, half dread) to seeing what he does with The Hills Have Eyes remake.

  12. anna 11/28/2005 @ 4:54pm

    I must be a dork. I am fairly new to actually appreciating horror film. I saw Session 9 after someone raved about it, and I fell asleep during it. Night of the Living Dead scares me every time, as does Blair Witch. It is all about being alone in the countryside, I suppose, since I live in suburbia. And I dream of retiring to the country someday.  I saw High Tension last night and I thought it was Great! It took me all day to get rid of that sick feeling in my stomach. The twist at the end probably made the sick feeling go away a little bit sooner, but in any case, I could watch it again and still find myself grasping the edge of my seat as if I were on a roller coaster. I need to watch it again, but I am wondering how I make sure that I get the right version. I saw a rented copy that a friend had.
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