High Tension

2003 [FRENCH]

Action / Horror

38
Rotten Tomatoes Critics - Rotten 58%
Rotten Tomatoes Audience - Spilled 58%
IMDb Rating 6.7/10 10 82371 82.4K

countryside insanity horror mass murder gore survival

Plot summary

Best friends Marie and Alexia decide to spend a quiet weekend at Alexia's parents' secluded farmhouse. But on the night of their arrival, the girls' idyllic getaway turns into an endless night of horror.

Director

Alexandre Aja Photo
Alexandre Aja

Top cast

Bogdan Uritescu Photo
Bogdan Uritescu as Gendarme
Philippe Nahon Photo
Philippe Nahon as Le tueur
Cécile De France Photo
Cécile De France as Marie
Marco Claudiu Pascu Photo
Marco Claudiu Pascu as Tom
720p.BluRay 1080p.BluRay
780.25 MB
1280*544
French 2.0
NR
Subtitles fr  
23.976 fps
1 hr 31 min
Seeds 12
1.46 GB
1920*816
French 2.0
NR
Subtitles fr  
23.976 fps
1 hr 31 min
Seeds 43

Movie Reviews

Reviewed by BA_Harrison 6 / 10

A (very) bloody rip-off.

For the first sixty minutes or so, Haute Tension is an uncompromising, brutal, nerve-shredding, edge-of-the-seat thriller—not surprising since virtually every one of those minutes is a blatant steal from Dean Koontz's brilliant, brutal, nerve-shredding, edge of the seat novel Intensity. Unfortunately, after the hour mark, director Alexandre Aja gradually steers his narrative away from Koontz's novel, presumably in a futile effort to disguise his plagiarism, and the film slowly falls apart, culminating in a ridiculous twist ending that makes a mockery of all that we have seen thus far.For fans of Intensity, it's a particularly frustrating experience: not just because the Koontz receives absolutely no credit for his work, but also because Aja's handling of the author's material is so good. If only Aja had adapted the whole of Koontz's book (preferably with the author's approval), we might have had one of the greatest horror movies of all time; instead, we get an hour of absolutely stonking stuff (the opening home invasion, in particular, is flawlessly handled and amazingly gory), which are followed by twenty more minutes of reasonably solid cat-and-mouse action, and then that bloody awful finale.For all the excellent stuff 'inspired' by Koontz, a rating of 9/10 seems fair; but for stealing the plot without giving the author credit and then having the nerve to tack on a dumb ending, I deduct three of those points, leaving the film a final score from me of 6/10. Worth a watch (especially for gore-hounds), but impossible to wholeheartedly endorse.
Reviewed by view_and_review 6 / 10

In Pursuit of a Killer

"High Tension" could've been and would've been better if it didn't go the dual personality route. The whole movie we were led to believe that a strange man (Philippe Nahon) came to Alex's family's house and killed them all. We were led to believe that Marie (Cecile de France) was able to hide from the killer and then pursue the killer who'd kidnapped Marie's friend Alexia (Maiwenn). Then, when the movie was about to conclude we found out that Marie was the killer the whole time and she only imagined (or was taken over by) the other personality. That would've been a nice twist except:A.) I've seen that twist too often ("Fight Club" did it best).B.) It was hard to reconcile what really happened with how Marie imagined it.Marie saw another man, she hid from this man, she ran from this man, she pursued this man in a totally different vehicle, she fought him and presumably killed him. I can stretch my imagination and reconcile much of it, but I can't reconcile the two different vehicles. How could she have been driving the Jeepers Creepers truck with Alex in the back as well as the yellow sports car (unless the yellow sports car didn't exist)?"High Tension" was a decent movie, but it would've been better if it had honestly stuck to the thread it was on: a determined woman pursuing a kidnapper/killer to rescue her best friend. Not to say that the dual personality angle wasn't good, it was actually quite cool because who'd expect a woman to be a crazed homicidal maniac, but the execution wasn't the best.
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