Ignoring the suprise twist, the first hour is amongst the most suspenseful horrorfilms I've ever seen, but then comes "the surprise ending", which directly contradicts the main body of the film and as a result, basically every scene suddenly is negated.

For instance:

[spoiler]As the family and the two girls to to bed, we see the bad guy mastubate in his car, then he drives up to the house, rings the bell, the father answers and gets first stabbed, then decapitated, all while the heroine remains in her room, then he kills the mother, cutting her hand of, then ties up the one girl.

The heroine, then hides from the bad guy, then finds her friend tied up, then finds the mother and looks for the phone, then... by accident is trapped in the bad guys car.

Now the surprise twist is, that the bad guys and the heroine is the same person. She is just schizo. So every scene we've just seen has never taken place. While Aja does try to explain some, like showing a murder on a gasstation thru a securitycamera, every scene from before getting there doesn't make sense.

Why do we se him mastubate away from the house, when she is in the house? How can she drive two cars at once? (the bad guys car and the one she steals to pursuit it)? As a stranger to this area of France, how come she has a cabin in the woods, which she appearently has lived in for years?[/spoiler]

Aja is obviously a very talented director. Until the surprise ending, the film is so perfectly timed and pays homage to so many horrorfilms and is so damn cool gory. Had it had a good ending, "Haute Tension" would have the best horrorfilm in decades.

But to abanddon any logic, to demand that everything you've seen so far just was a joke, without offering any logical reason, without any explaination, to destroy ones entire mise-en-scene and story in order to get a surprise is IMO the worst a film can do. It is to ridicule not only the audience but also ones own story, and that is unacceptable.


From what I hear, yes.

Yes I'd agree with the above. It is an excellent horror film until the twist. It seems like one of those twists that you see in a Hollywood action film geared towards what seems to be a 'casual' film watcher who will only see the film once and will be shocked by the twist - a shock that, because it comes very late, would hopefully last until the end of the film. It seems designed to make many people satisfied that they have got their money's worth as the end credits roll - the problem is that if you watch it again, or have any knowledge of horror films and their conventions you can't really believe that this is seriously the direction the director intends to take the film. It seems a desperate move to keep from ending it with a conventional heroine/villain showdown and take it in a new direction, but one which destroys logic.

[spoiler]Fight Club, which is a much better film logically almost threw me out of the film and gave me a similar problem to Haute Tension in a more minor way with the flashback to the parking lot scene with Edward Norton beating himself up. This was something he has shown he can do to himself in front of his boss so his punching himself is OK, but then having two guys come up to him who are actually interested in what he is doing, rather than thinking him a wacko seems illogical - Fight Club manages to slide round that by omitting the part of the flashback in which Norton manages to convince the first couple of guys to join a club in which he was previously the only member(!) so while it does not feel like it rings true to me, I can follow along with the rest of the film - unfortunately Haute Tension has a number of these "how could that happen?" moments where simply because the character has been so effectively individualised from the murderer throughout the opening of the film it is difficult looking back to figure out whether at this point in the pre-twist film the character is more herself watching, more the killer, and at which point she has made that switch.

Fight Club seems the pinnacle of how to do this 'split-personality twist' film and is carefully constructed so that you can tell as an audience member that the twist was the point of what came before, rather than an extra short term shock for the audience. For example a number of moments where when you look back you see that the personalities are clearly delineated - either Tyler is not around when Jack is (the post-sex scene with Marla), or that when they are together or with other people one of the personalities (usually Jacks, but sometimes Tyler when he is MC-ing the club) is the more passive and in the background).

Haute Tension has a number of similar moments that do not seem to work. For instance the scene with the mother makes me wonder how it played out 'in reality' - did the girl go into the closet and hide, then come out as the murderer and chase the mother into the room, then turn into the girl again and hide back in the closet to communicate with the mother, then become the murderer and come back out again to kill her? If it is something like that, then why is the mother always looking at the girl in the closet? Or did something completely different happen, in which case what is the point of the sequence at all?

I often try very hard to understand films and make them logical and I could understand the stranger waiting outside being a manifestation of the girl's psyche (for example her masturbation starting the killer on his first attack on the house is a good piece of foreshadowing of the dual personality twist), but I would agree with Henrik that the logistics of the cars are a problem. How did the girl get the truck (Or in her eyes was the family's car turned into the truck? But then if the truck was the family's car shouldn't it have been shown for what it was once the film leaves her point of view?) It seems like messy storytelling unfortunately and suggests that these aspects (and that of the girl/killer knowing about the farm) have been glossed over rather than having an explanation worked out for them.

One of the major things that disturbed me is the attitude to sexuality. I know this is just one girl who turns out to be seriously disturbed, and is not intended to stand for all lesbians, but for most of the film the audience is asked to see her as a quiet girl with a crush on her straight friend, who then comes to her help when she is kidnapped. And of course the main girl's sexual longing is the major theme and catalyst of the events of the film. Then we are asked to see her crush exacerbating her insanity after it becomes obvious her friend is not interested. It almost seems as if the film initially says "this film will be the lesbian version of all those kidnap films, getting past all those "man saving the defenceless woman" cliches and dealing with how women defend themselves against men", but then seems to become deeply conservative almost as if the film is saying "you've had fun watching this lesbian, but watch out because gay people are not in control of their emotions and can be psychotic(!)". It this sense it seems to me a little homophobic and one of the most conservative films of recent times, second only to the Pang Brother's film The Eye in which the blind girl gets her sight back, sees ghosts, helps them, but then becomes blind in the final apocalypse - the explicit message of her final happy newly blind walk to camera is bascially that 'ignorance is bliss'! Very different from Sixth Sense where the child comes to see it as a duty that he has been given.[/spoiler]

All this said, if you try not to understand the film in any way more deeper than a visceral one, it is a fun watch ([spoiler]and I think that was all the twist was intended for, rather than to make a larger point, as in Fight Club[/spoiler]), for example the twist is followed by a wonderfully cathartic gore scene that I haven't seen in horror for a while! Maybe it was meant to mitigate the disappointment horror fans would feel with the story - it doesn't, but it is spectacular!

I think that the director's next films will be worth looking out for, the acting is excellent, there are some absolutely amazing images, and the pre-twist film is magnificently tense, fully living up to its French title, so well worth watching and a high point in the few French horror films I've managed to see, if sadly finally misguided.

Btw, the twist in "Hide and seek" is basically the same as in "Haute Tension", and just as stupid.

Surely the twist in this film exists as [spoiler:1otv11cj]there is nothing more terrifying than being attacked by someone that you know and trust? Imagine if one of your best friends or someone you work with went beserk and started attacking the things you treasure. Not a pleasant thought is it? I think that this is particularly effective in this case where the violence is extremely(!) aggressive and the protagonist is a young woman.[/spoiler:1otv11cj]
That said, I'm sure that this could have been implemented much better than how it was this film. It has a real feel of two distinct film being forced into one.
However it is the most memorable horror film I've seen since Audition with very classy direction (considering it is part of the slasher genre) and characters that behave in a believable manner (for the most part).

I'm not sure since [spoiler:3at30fx9]most of the film is seen through the eyes of the killer - if it was about a trusted person turning against you then it would maybe be through the eyes of the girl that is kidnapped, rather than there being the abrupt shift to her in the final section. If the film has a larger point to make, it seems it seems about repression bursting out into violence and 'no' not being taken for an answer, so I guess it is understandable that the girl chooses a male killer to overpower the family and take by force - someone she can prove herself against to win the damsel in distress, at least until the illusion is forcibly broken by her 'damsel' running off so she has no choice but to try to kill her.

But it does raise disturbing questions about why choose a gay character? Personally I don't think it was for any intentional homophobic reason - I would say it was more for the final twist that the killer turned out to be the girl, and to have a pro-active beautiful heroine that the audience can identify with in the pre-twist part of the film. But I think that unfortunately the film by using such a character, showing them as normal and even heroic before twisting it to show them as the psycho perhaps does not realise that it could perhaps be playing around with these traits in too blase a way - a straight film for a straight audience that flirts with a heroic lead gay character before pulling back from it?[/spoiler:3at30fx9]

[spoiler]I would hope that any audience seeking out and watching this would not be ignorant enough to make the connection that you fear is implied in the film. Although it would certainly have been more reasonable and sensible to have had the character as a heterosexual male.[/spoiler]

Thank-you for that information, I will save my time and money then. Hide and Seek pissed my off. No thanks to Deniro either

Ditto. The wrong people were recommending this movie to me after it played at Sundance. You know something is wrong when someone uses the "revolutionary" terminology to describe a movie from a genre they don't even appreciate. Oh well, Land of the Dead just 3 weeks later.

Oh come on. So ridiculous and unfair to put Hide and Seek and Haute Tension in the same sigh. Some time ago, I borrowed my friend's English dubbed DVD. I was blown away. A very fresh breath of air to the moldy and terrible state of todays horror cinema. It instantly yanked me back to my pre-teen days (late 70s to early 80s) when I was trying to catch every horror film at the local drive-ins and on HBO at home. It was the era when the American horror cinema was at its peak - Halloween, Dawn of the Dead, Friday the 13th, and so on. It was such an adenaline rush for a young boy - getting kicked over watching Phantasm, Evil Dead, Suspiria, anything by Tobe Hooper or with Jamie Lee Curtis, etc. Lots of great fun! Like being on a rollercoaster every time.

As I got older, the horror cinema became awful and stale. For more than 20 years, I had been longing for a film that captured the same spirit of the American horror cinema of the 70s and early 80s. I was excited when House of 1000 Corpses and the remakes of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Dawn of the Dead came out but I ended up disappointed. Then finally the new rollercoaster - Haute Tension!



It IS the best horror film in decades. I'm okay with the "big twist" ending even though I do think that the whole [spoiler]"schizo"[/spoiler] twist gets old very fast and I wish that the director could come up with something more original. For this type of horror film, I never bother trying to look for logic which I leave at the door every time I sit down to watch a film like this .. this is a film that put you in the eyes of a woman observing the killer and also being chased by him. It's all about the experience. Visceral and eviscerating! I was literally at the edge of my seat the whole time (and for the first time from a horror film in decades).

Hide and Seek is utter crap. Haute Tension isn't.

True, but a rollercoaster, where the designers said, "Lets only build half and then having the riders falling to their deaths. I'm sure that will scare their socks off."

Honestly dvdane, please name a horror film(s) released since the 80s that you think is the most excellent. You were ready to call Haute Tension the best horror film in decades until the "big twist" came and slashed the film. Have you given the film another chance? I've seen it only once and I often wonder if the film gets better on repeated viewings. Two other recent films - A Tale Of Two Sisters and Oldboy - have the "big twist" endings (still way over the top not much different from Haute Tension). I believe (according to some of your posts) that your respect for those films is quite high. How come that you're okay with those two and not Haute Tension?

I guess that the ending just really disappointed the dane, and hence his hostility.

The twist ending of "A Tale of Two Sisters" doesn't betray the entire narrative before it, it not only supports it, but also allows repeated viewings.

Apart from "A Tale of Two Sisters", only two horrorfilms has impressed me over the last decade: "The Others" and "Dark Waters".

Wilson, its not just that the ending of "Haute Tension" dissapointed me, it mocked me, and dare say that it mocks any viewer. The main body is so carefully constructed, streches the suspense so beautifully, and then asks us to ignore everything we've just seen.

The worst thing about the twist of "Haute Tension" is, that its not needed. Where the plot of "Hide and seek" has overcomplicated itself to such a degree, that the twist is a desperate attempt to patch things up, "Haute Tension" doesn't need the twist. The entire main storyline deals with our heroine against the killer, a cat and mouse game, but rather than following the line and giving us a twist which continues this path, the twist reduces everything we have seen to utter nonsense.

The only explaination for the twist is, that no one, even in his wildest imagination ever would have thought of that, and thus its surprising. Hell, if the two girls had turned out to be aliens and the killer an alien bountyhunter, or if the killer in reality was a intelligent circus bear now killing women, because a girl threw popcorn at him at the circus, would have been better than the twist.

Even reading that the ending is a letdown and makes no sence at all in the context of the film I do really want to see it. Whats going to be a even bigger letdown is if it's true Lione Gate is going to cut the film to get an R rating and that it's going to be the dubbed verion that comes out in June.

Just watched the trailer for "High Tension" after reading the entirety of this thread (including the spoilers).

http://www.apple.com/trailers/lions_gate/high_tension/

It is English-dubbed. The IMDB reports that "Lions Gate cut 1 minute for US Theatrical Release to get an "R" rating and also dubbed the film in English using Marie's real voice for her part."
Dylan

PS- is the music in the "High Tension" trailer the score for the film? If so, then it's very good.

Edit: After seeing 27 2005 films, this has remained the very worst of them.

A very good positive review at DVD Times:

http://www.dvdtimes.co.uk/content.php?contentid=55602

The music in that trailer is the band Sonic Youth covering an old Carpenters song called Superstar. Its from the tribute album, If I Were A Carpenter.

Really? I sampled the clips of Sonic Youth performing "Superstar" and it sounds nothing like the music in the trailer (I'm refering to what I suppose is trailer #2, which I provided the link for). It's a haunting synth-based melody, and I especially love how uniquely intense it progresses throughout the trailer. If it is indeed the instrumental part of that song cover I'm very impressed.

It is Sonic Youth's cover of Superstar. Definitely.

Dylan, since you don't care for slasher films, I'm afraid you will not like Haute Tension , which is an ultimate slasher film - that's all it is, nothing more. What the film does is brilliantly reviving the long-dead spirit of the '70s slasher films. I had been waiting for a film to do this with great success for more than 20 years - not even the recent remakes could. For a slasher film, Haute Tension is jaw-droppingly well done in every way - perfect I have to say (like dvdane wrote, "so carefully constructed, stretches the suspense beautifully"). I couldn't ask for a better "horror" soundtrack than Haute Tensions - it's reminiscent of a Argento/Goblin collaboration. The incredibly beautiful cinematography is very deep and penetrating. Grimy and moody. And the composition.. my god! This is the kind of film that can easily be studied frame by frame. The "twist" ending doesn't bother me at all - it never left me feeling ridiculed or mocked. A few '70s slasher films have "twist" endings that are so bizarre and impossible - Friday the 13th and Terror Train come to my mind at this moment. So I can see where Aja got his ending from. On the imdb.com message board for Haute Tension, there is a handful of different interpretations/point of views of the ending.

Haute Tension is merely a very beautiful, artistic love letter to the '70s slasher films. An immense joy for those who grew up peeking through their fingers or hiding behind pillows, watching those truly messed-up films that Haute Tension completely embraces.

From Alexandre Aja: Haute tension is that official return horror fans have been pining over for far too long.

Indeed.

Well Micheal, I do love "Suspiria," so it's not like I dislike all slasher movies. I do realize it's a 'love letter' to 70s slash/horror (though I haven't seen "Last House on the Left," which it is being compared to). When it comes out I'll probably see it for curiousity's sake.

Dylan

dvdane, I agree with your choices: Dark Water and The Others - both magnificent ghost stories. Other great modern horror films = A Tale of Two Sisters, Ringu / The Ring, The Blair Witch Project, Audition. Am I forgetting any more titles?

The recent remakes - Dawn of the Dead and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre - are very enjoyable. I love DOTD's freaky opening with the zombie girl. I still don't know what to make of the TTCM remake. It's a very odd film with some cool set pieces and cinematography. I remember being struck by the film's gorgeous surface but something was missing. It was creepy but not scary. I think it tried too hard to be raw but couldn't. Too hollow to get under your skin.

Haute Tension is an ultimate slasher and that's what make it stand out in the current mess of remakes, ghost, zombie films. Other than Haute Tension, I can't think of a completely visceral, nerve-wreckingly scary, beautifully made slasher since Argento's Terror At The Opera.

Dylan, Suspiria is easily my favorite slasher of all time.

Best thing about the TTCM remake is Jesssica Biel's ass in low rider jeans. Seriously.

I'll, seriously, back that up. Fan-tass-tic!


I would have described it the other way around. It had so many "jump" in your seat moments that sought to immediately scare the audience, that I stopped reacting half way through. Meanwhile, the original is incredibly creepy since it becomes so surreal, especially with all the meat-eating turned to cannibalism. Without that twisted idea incorporated into the re-make (though there was the lame trip to the meat-packing plant), it just functioned as shallow box-office exercise, that merely sought to crank up the violence/blood factor. At least the Dawn of the Dead remake had some moments of interesting character interaction and created a dynamic that somewhat respectable to the original (...and here come the Romero fans to tear into me).

The original TTCM is creepy AND scary. No question about it. To date, it's the most horrifying, sick, disturbing, nasty slasher. Period. I saw this film when I was about 12 or 13 years old. My buddy came over with the videotape and warned me that at least one or two killings in the film were rumored to be real. I was gullible and believed him. Later he told me that he was kidding and I felt like such a big idiot!