| Show The film goes gallic a r- r 7 j ft F c m- m I Stephen Hunter The Washinton Post The French they are so saucy but the sauce that does not impress them is ketchup That's our baby crude sluggish sluggish sluggish slug slug- gish red goo lacking a certain something Until now Sacre bleu and mon Dieu the French have discovered ketchup That's ketchup as in movie blood and the new French film High Tension is with the stuff Are we ready for this French gore French slaughter A French psycho-killer psycho stalking the night What's he gonna do criticize you disdainfully while lighting a then order an aperitif Non hes he's going to chop off your head monsieur I dont don't know what but to me it seems so wrong These people people people peo peo- invented the little perfect movie about domestic dislocation dislocation dislocation dislo dislo- cation love gone awry full of apercus of wit and insight epiphanies of the miniature and now they're doing one where a guy with a buzz saw chases a girl through the woods Youve You've seen this movie about two dozen times without the French accent Its It's the one about the hulking stranger who shows up in the country house with a dirty face and a wicked sharp blade The plot something like Now I kill him then I kill her lets let's see now a him then a her It can only be said that if you like this sort of thing then this is the sort of thing you like Director Alexandre Aja and screenwriter Gregory Levasseur add a little frisson of perversity here and there first a deliciously deliriously pretentious filmmaking style with jagged showy compositions that look like the covers of bad CDs you'll never play Then oh I like this there so are the filters on the lens that make everything appear photographed photographed photographed pho pho- through an aquarium um darkly so that the various slaughters and atrocities have that so-droll so arty patina to them But the more amusing perversities perversities perversities per per- are sexual In American films its it's usually the bad kids with their hormonal hormonal hormonal hor hor- monal yearnings and wandering wandering wandering wander wander- ing eager hands who draw the killer out of some misguided misguided misguided mis mis- guided puritan ethic for the French or at least for this entry in the slaughter slaughter-of- nubile genre its it's the siren call of sex same-sex longing girl style that brings the bad boy into play As the movie has it Marie and Alex Cecile de France and an actress called one name only thank you very much are headed out to Alexs Alex's family's summer house Their relationship relationship relationship relation relation- ship is somewhat ambiguous but the lean and muscular Marie appears to have a more than passing fondness for the themore themore themore more feminine Alex and the director so enjoys locating phallic imagery in the old oldhouse oldhouse oldhouse house that you catch on even without a PhD from the Sorbonne and nine published pieces in du Cinema Then the killer shows up and starts chopping You have to give it to the filmmakers for their contempt of convention no foreplay no teasing no steady buildup of dread just a knock on the thedoor thedoor thedoor door and the slaughterer is there Poor Marie she sees the first murder hides and watches all the other murders as the guy guy he he looks like hes he's had a few pork sandwiches washed down by a few Stellas in his time methodically goes through the house Papa is the first to perish in the living living living liv liv- decapitated by a ing room credenza followed by Mama in the bedroom and little brother in the cornfield These are gruesome extinctions particularly particularly particularly par par- Mamas Mama's it looks as though a plastic bottle of Heinz fell into the and How do you translate that into French Alex is chained up and it turns out the fellow has special special special cial plans for her He locks her in his truck The unseen Marie sneaks into the truck before he can pull away the rampage continues first in a agas agas agas gas station then on an isolated isolated isolated ed dirt road in the forest where the inevitable twist arrives right on schedule and should surprise no one who has been paying attention and who has seen at least one other horror movie in his or her life High Tension was originally originally originally nally slated to be one of the few authentic NC 17 releases- releases imagine how ghastly that version must have been Now its it's been for an R rating although the ratings boards board's description is quite a bill of goods Graphic bloody killings terror sexual content and language Is that a description or a review High Tension 85 minutes is r rated ted R for graphic bloody killings terror sexual content and language |
