Haute Tension

Uh...where to start...

First up: Thanks for posting your thoughts on the film. It looks like you like this one a whole lot, and you clearly put some time and effort into writing this. I tend to think this flick is a mixed bag, with some exceptional camera work and editing marred by uneven performances and some silly screenplay issues. I also have a bit of an issue with director's that flat out lie to the viewer in an effort to sell the twist. There are plenty of films that use the "can you really trust the POV of this narrator?" to great effect, namely most of Lynch's work and flicks like Fight Club, but those films don't go as far as to set up events that can't physically be happening if another person in the situation doesn't actually exist.

Case in point: In Fight Club, the narrator (sometimes called Jack) is shown staging a fight in his boss's office where he basically kicks his own ass in an effort to extort the company for a stay-at-home position. Later, we see him in another fight, this time with Tyler Durden (who doesn't actually exist), while the security cameras reveal the twist that he is in fact Tyler Durden, himself. This works because he is in the same physical space we see as viewers, so it makes sense that he could be beating himself up. Well done scene!

A scene in Haught Tension shows the two women being held captive in the backk of a truck, which is then driven to another location. We are shown the narrating character, who also happens to be suffering from psychogenic fugue and identity creation/suppression disorders, as you mentioned, as being one of the captives in the back of the truck. This can;t work. She can't lock herself in the back of a truck and then also be driving the truck at the same time. This is a physical impossibility which for all intents and purposes is an outright lie by the film maker meant to trick the viewer into thinking another character exists. Fight Club does this too, but when you go back over the events after finding out the twist, you don't run into any situations like the one in Haught Tension that present a spacial impossibility.

To me, that makes Fight Club an elegant exercise in playing with convention, and stuff like Haught Tension and Identity a cheap parlor trick that loses its magic after the reveal. That said, I still found Haught Tension to be someone entertaining, because Aja is actually a pretty talented guy, from what I can tell. I like how he sets up his scenes, and the look he gives his films in post-production. I liked his remake of The Hills Have Eyes quite a bit.

Thanks for the review!

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I still feel exactly the same way about it. It is an effective and well made bloody thriller....up until the ending, which is such lazy, ludicrous, insulting horsecrap that it absolutely ruins whatever simple genre pleasures the flick had been coasting on up until that point.

Basically, it has the exact same logic problems that Donald Kaufman's psychologically taut thriller does in Adaptation...

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Call me crazy, but I'm probably one of the few who were satisfied by the twist ending. Though I felt rather saddened to see a character I was rooting for throughout the entire movie, was the suspect all along, the psychology behind the movie was quite...interesting.

Marie looked like a normal woman, though inside she had many insecurities, such as being a closeted sexual for instance. She was so blinded by sexual frustration, and rejection that she completely created an alternate identity that just so happen to have evil intentions. I personally believe this set Aja in line for a good sequel, perhaps even better than the first movie since he's more experienced now (High Tension was one of his first films). Either way, I still love the movie. Thanks for the feedback guys.

Oh, and the fact that Cecile de France has short hair in the movie. She looks incredible with short hair, heh.

The themes are fine, she is gorgeous...and what happens in the end of the film is physically impossible if she is both the victim and the killer. I haven't seen it in a long time, so I don't remember every specific detail, but she can't drive a vehicle while she is in the trunk, she can't be in the convenience store and outside of it at the same time, etc. There are too many moments, especially in that chase finale, that are physically impossible after the big twist that it has only been one person. Which ruins everything that came before it, for me. I am willing to suspend some disbelief here and there in a genre effort, but you can't go THAT far off the skids and have me sit there and be anything but insulted. To me it plays like a cheap cheat, which is a shame. Played straight, I think it's a good thriller. Ludicrous twist? Check, please.

But, you're mileage varied. And good on ya.

There's plenty of movies I don't like and no harm done. The ending to this pissed me off enough so that I consider it a bad film, even though I enjoyed almost the whole thing.

I had really mixed feelings about this movie back when I first saw it about five years ago. I still remember it pretty vividly, but some stuff is hazy. It definitely left an impression on me, but sadly it was mostly negative. I had two issues with this movie, first of all the twist was extremely weak. The use of multiple personality disorder and schizophrenia were done in a very typical and unrealistic style. Obviously the director had no remote understanding of either illness, or mental illness in general, and couldn't be bothered to research it and present it within even the slightest semblance of reality. My second issue was the general lack of any deep or meaningful content. It was just all so typical. Set up some basic relationships, and then put the characters through hell. Tell me, how is she hiding in the closet and stabbing someone to death at the same time? How did she drive the truck there in the first place and ambush the house while she herself was in it? That's not a twist, that just doesn't even make any sense and isn't even possible by any stretch of the imagination. Aside from that the acting was good and the violence was brutal. So I did sit through the whole movie.

Fight Club... eh, I don't think I agree with Holden on the issue of impossible situations. Fight Club had some impossible situations, but not too many to ruin the movie. I think High Tension was the worst portrayals of multiple personality disorder schizophrenia I have ever seen. Even worse than Wes Craven because of the sheer amount of impossible situations and the staggering degree to their impossibility.

Haute Tension is very good I listen to it with my new dvd yesterday and I was very not dissapointed

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I'll have to echo the same thoughts about the absurd ending here. Everything about the film was going so well too. Then the ridiculousness that is the twist came and I nearly did a quadruple take. Is this really how they're gonna end it?

Yup, then the film fell apart for me. As good as the previous section was in terms of thrills, gore, and pure excitement, the final act pretty much erases it all and is an insult to the viewer. Was it thrown on because twist endings were the craze back then? I have no idea, but it almost comes off as an exercise in filmmaking more so than an actual film. An exercise in how to stage a Thriller and how not to end a thriller.

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Suspect's Reviews

I don't have anything to add other than, "yep, me too." The ending ruined what could have been one of the top slasher films.

I got everything I wanted from this film and more from Martyrs (2008). So if you liked the potential High Tension had, but were dissappointed by the ending, then I think you'll like Martyrs.

Oh man...Martyrs....that was a difficult watch for me.

Yeah it was heart wrenching. That's why I loved it. It made me actually feel the pain the characters went through.


High Five anyone?

I personally still think Aja set himself in line with a good sequel idea. When Alex directed High Tension, it was his first major film he ever directed. Now that he is more experienced not only with directing, but creating movies under the horror genre, I personally believe Aja could come back with a sequel that could either 1) go through the same movie through Alex's POV, but...we'd be watching the same movie all over again. Though since we're watching it through Alex's narration, it would be generally more realistic (hopefully), and remove or explain that impossibilities in the first film. 2) create a sequel actually going a bit in depth on Marie's disorder, explaining it a lot better than they did in the original film. Or 3) They could create an entirely new film from where they left off, which I'd also like to see.

Though I love the movie, I will agree with you to some extinct that it WAS confusing. Again, the only flaw I believed to have been in the movie was that Aja overestimated the audience's expertness in psychology. Besides that, brilliant film for me. And I generally have an open mind about movies, but there are a lot (LOT) worse horror movies I have seen that shouldn't even be compared to High Tension. I think it's Aja's best work.

I'm not sure you're entirely absorbing people's complaints. Nobody's complaining that it was confusing--they're complaining that it didn't make sense. They're complaining about story constructions and internal logic--neither of which should or would be altered by one's level of expertise in psychology.

There's a scene where she's supposed to be driving with herself in the trunk. There's another where she's hiding from the killer while someone is being killed by them. Obviously, both are impossible, so the ending means that in both cases she was the one committing the act, while simultaneously just imagining not doing it.

The mark of a good twist is that you can watch the film again and see how all the events line up with the new interpretation. Lines of dialogue with double meanings, or people behaving around the imagined person in ways that are consistent with them not being there. Those things aren't present here. Showing it again, but depicting reality, would not show her actions in a new light: it would erase her actions. All the things she does in the film would be gone, because they didn't happen.