This is a French slasher film directed and co-written by Alexandre Aja. In spite of a slight continental feel and a little lesbian relationship, this film is solid cliché from the early days of slasher films. It is one cliché after another, and then at the end the writer plasters on an ending that is logically inconsistent with the rest of the film.

Rating: -1 (-4 to +4)


HAUTE TENSION opens in a very standard way. Two young women visit a farmhouse where one's parents and brother work. The audience has seen that a killer is operating in the same area, driving an old truck. On our first view of the killer he tosses a woman's head out the truck window and it falls in a cornfield. This is just to announce the killer's proximity to the characters.

We have a few scenes intended to make the audience jump, but which do not seem to advance the plot. Then the action starts.

There is a knock at the door. The owner of the house opens the door and is sliced and diced. The killer continues his way through the house like a rolling Vegematic killing everyone he finds. These sequences are very violent but not much new. There are three people in the house than the two young women, but somehow you know the others will be dispatched quickly so the killer can concentrate on terrorizing the two main characters.

Eventually there are some twists in the plot, but just enough to make what we have seen inconsistent. The ending raises a lot of questions that cannot really be answered by the story. This is not a film for fans of the subtle or the original.

Mark R. Leeper

© 2005 Mark R. Leeper

NB: This review was originally published in the 10/31/03 issue of the MT VOID, but is being re-run because it is finally getting a release here.