High Tension

High Tension has one of the best concepts of horror twists I’ve seen in recent memory. This film came out during the French extremity, in the early 2000s, which had an emphasis on gore, r@pe, violence and shock value. Martyrs was another memorable one. Directed by Alexandre Aja, Horns (2013), Mirrors (2008), and The Hills Have Eyes (2006). This French horror film is full of gore kill scenes, got a surprising but fvcked up ending, and not in a good way.

At first, the story started out like the usual. A serial killer on a spree in the middle nowhere. The story progresses as per usual, someone is going to survive and rescue the other victim etc. The entirety of the film is as expected of a gore serial killer film, but upon reaching about 90% of its duration they reveal the twist (which I’m going to talk about in the latter part of my review).

Characters

The casting were great, each able to deliver that fear, desperation and tension, and have the audience feel it as well. Maïwenn, the victim to be rescued, and Cécile de France, the survivor, were outstanding, each of them certainly delivered.

What will stay with me was the first kill, and the most creative of the bunch, made my eyes widen, its with the use of stair banisters and a small wooden dresser, use your imagination. Blood was spewing out like a faucet.

Great effects

Effects was actually decent, the kills were on point gore, specially those that were done inside the house. The radio music as a background was also great. A very fitting usage of old radio music, and as country and feel good music as it sounds, it ironically keeps the tension high.

Senseless twist

Okay, now let’s talk about the bad parts of High Tension, mainly the twist. In my opinion, the twist was unnecessary and just derailed what was supposed to be an already great French horror film.
So the main character, played by Cécile de France, was a very crappy and useless narrator. Towards the end of it, the police reviewed the CCTV tape from the gas station, where the guy was axed to death. Revealing that the supposed serial killer, a guy wearing an overalls, sort of a painter’s attire, was really Cécile herself.

After the reveal, nothing made sense anymore. See, when the supposed serial killer abducts Maïwenn after killing all of her family members, Cécile was inside the truck as well, together with the bounded Maïwenn. When they got to the gas station, Cécile supposedly got out somehow while the killer was putting in gas. Went inside the store and asked for help from the gas boy. The killer walks in, then Cécile hid at the back; the gas boy was talking to the killer as if nothing was wrong. If Cécile and the killer were one and the same, wouldn’t the gas boy be confused as well? Or even no conversation should’ve happened in the first place. That’s the first.

Second nonsensical thing was, when the killer got back to the truck and drive away, Cécile chased after it using a yellow Ford, the gas boy’s car. Now if Cécile are one and the same, how did the car chase even happened. Even if we assumed that the chase never happened, the Ford’s crash was real. So the chase did indeed happen.

My own theory for their senseless twist

My theory are as follow, as sort of a defense for the illogical twist that they made.

• Everything that happened was a point of view but at the same time from a third-person’s perspective, if that makes any sense. So maybe Cécile was a very useless, crappy narrator.
• The car chase probably did happen, but some other guy was driving that out of worry or trying to help then got killed as well but not shown. Just a probability.
• The intro where we see the killer using a decapitated head of a woman to pleasure himself—my theory is that Cécile was dreaming, because the next scene, we see Cécile waking up beside Maïwenn. By the way, if you take a look closely, that head was Maïwenn’s.
• Another redeeming fact I’ve picked up after my second watch was when Cécile went out the closet, Maïwenn’s dying mother says “Why, why, why, why?” Asking why and how could she do that to them.
  In the end we see Cécile inside a mental correctional institute.

Conclusion

It was a good psychological horror film with a lot of tension and gore. Definitely not for kids and squeamish people. Everything was actually going great until that unnecessary, nonsensical, illogical twist that they added in the end. If you’re going to watch this, I suggest you stop at the point when the police are at the gas station scene. I feel like it should’ve ended there and it could’ve ended on a much higher note. With that said, High Tension is still a movie to watch specially for gore genre fans.