High Tension

The last couple of times that I hung out with fellow trash-basher Steve Carpenter, I ended up borrowing an entire box full of NES games and High Tension on dvd. I have heard many great things about this French gore gem online in various places, and when I noticed that Steve had this hiding in plain sight on his horror shelf-I had to act. I was genuinely excited and asked him immediately if I could snag it. Of course he obliged, and I threw it in the huge box of NES carts in complete anticipation of what I was going to be a part of when I had the time to watch it. Let me tell you, zits and zombies-High Tension is no joke. Everything about this film is top notch-high rung. There are no bad spots, no flinching, twitching or shaking of any kind and it's extremely rare that any film achieves such a grand mark from any reviewer-regardless of level, experience and prestige. It just never happens. If I put together the best of the year instead of the worst, High Tension would be up there. How it's paced, the character interaction, intensity, score, wrap-around and twist culminate together to make the greatest goddamn crock-pot dinner you've never had the pleasure of consuming. And that, zits and zombies, is how a film should be made. 

I've never liked feet.

Does anyone ever have normal dreams?  

The French still haven't figured out what deodorant is yet, have they.

Having sex with a woman's severed head is on a whole new level of wrong.

Gak. Wall paper is the worst.

I have a feeling that you won't be glad that you met Alex's family in the near future.

Not Beethoven-Hendrix.

Single person parties are always a blast.

The whole family is dead now. So how about killing this asshole already?

C'mon you sick fuck. Don't kill the kid. Just don't.

Sticks and stones may break my bones, but being chained up means he loves me.

 Overall, what blows my mind about High Tension is the twist towards the end. Everything else builds itself into what is to come once you get there, but this is seriously one hell of a ride. There are a lot of things that happen in this film that I just wasn't expecting, and much to my surprise, there was a scene that actually made me jump. Yeah, you read that right... I actually jumped at something. The mother in the family towards the beginning had already been chopped up by the killer, and Marie had witnessed that whole thing through the slits in the closet of the parents bedroom. She was hiding. What caught me off guard was when the camera just hangs there over the mother's stiff, dead face, and all of a sudden she starts moving and twitching-and that shit made me squirm in my chair. For real. That is just a sign of quality directing and cinematography because had this been any other picture, I wouldn't have reacted like that. No way. I highly suggest you watch this when the moment is right because if you don't, you're really missing out. Haute Tension. Haute Violence.