BY EMIL TIEDEMANN
By the 1970s the horror genre had worn itself thin, barely scrapping by on ideas that had already come and gone. Moviegoers were no longer petrified of Dracula, Frankenstein or psychos who dressed up as their dead mothers. Filmmakers took notice and introduced new concepts, most notably in Tobe Hooper's The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) and later in John Carpenter's Halloween (1978), which shed a lense on terrorized young women who were stalked by knife--or chainsaw--wielding madmen, and most of whom had to bare a little T&A in between takes. Hense, the thrasher film sub-genre was born!
After a breif period of imaginative comatose during the late-'8os and early-'90s, the thrasher species finally enjoyed an embraced resurgence via hit movies like the Scream trilogy (1996-2000) and a pair of I Know What You Did Last Summer flicks (1997-98). Since then cinema fans have had a steady flow of goretastic blood fests (ie. Saw, Hostel), but seemingly all the tolerable efforts were U.S. bred. That is until France, of all places, dipped their bloody hands in the pot and cooked up some High Tension.Alexandre Aja's French slasher film starts us off with two college girlfriends, Marie (Pot Luck's Cecile de France) and Alex (The Fifth Element's Maiwenn Le Besco), on a road trip to the latter's family home in the countryside, surrounded by corn fields and nothing more. The two young women settle in for the night, but Marie--in the midst of a masturbation session--is suddenly startled by their barking dog. Alex's father (Andrei Finti) rushes downstairs to answer the door, only to become victim #1 in some lunatic's murderous expedition. The paunchy, greasy psychopath (Philippe Nahon), draped in soiled coveralls, beheads the man of the house before he sets his blade to the family pet and then Alex's mother (Oana Pellea), and finally puts a bullet in her younger brother after he tries to escape through the corn fields.
A chained and gagged Alex is imprisoned in the killer's rusty delivery truck, alongside Marie, who unintentionally ends up by her side while trying to rescue Alex from her imminent demise. After a stop-over at an unfrequented gas station, where Marie breaks free and an incognizant gas attendant becomes victim #4, the man drives Alex off to the secluded woods, where the story really begins to unravel.
To say Aja offers up a surprise twist to sum up High Tension (a.k.a. Switchblade Romance) would be a conspicuous understatement, as the film untangles itself in a stupefying revelation that I'm sure almost no one could have foreseen, if not for a subtle hint in the film's inception. Although satisfying to no end, this bewildering ending leaves some major plot holes that Aja is unable to fill in, such as an opening scene that has the paunchy serial killer, um...pleasuring himself, with a decapitated head! You have to see the movie to understand what I'm referring to. Indiscrepencies aside, High Tension is a thrill ride that is not for the faint of heart, one that revitalized a sub-genre that had taken a wrong turn, perhaps. Who knew that the highway would lead us to France?!3.5/5 stars
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