Appreciated the gore effects, but a boring and numb movie. It's pretty much one slow chase. The end twist, even when accompanied with generic spooky whispering and the sound of Muse, it failed to give the movie a deeper meaning and didn't tie together any web of mystery. There is no mystery. Hardly a plot. It was a cheap contrived end that tried to salvage a terrible movie. The message is that you can make a completely crappy and unoriginal movie but as long as there is some twist, even a bad one, people will think it's clever. One of the most overrated movies I've seens in a while.
Such a well-crafted cat and mouse horror thriller piece that really knows how to live up to its title. I realized I've been holding my breath for almost the entire time. It's super stylish (love the intro) and filled with uncompromising violence and suspense. The tension in this thing is constantly high and the gore is seriously impressive. The pacing works, it doesn’t take long to get into it as it doesn’t waste any time getting to the horrific elements. There's so much hate regarding the twist but I really enjoyed it. There's also some good camerawork here and the rapid editing works well for a film like this. Also strong lead performance by Cécile de France.
I revisited this and really enjoyed. Unrelenting action throughout as evil pursuit draws you in with excessive violence. Some do not like the finale, but I was good with it and feel it was earned.
Dado o fim, nota-se que Aja tinha as melhores das intensões para esse filme, mas acontece que o saldo final, bagunçado, não o deixa chegar perto dessas pretensões.
Ele funciona perfeitamente bem por um lado, já que, sendo um Terror componente do (velho) ~Novo Extremismo Francês~, é dotado de tudo aquilo que o movimento requer: protagonismo feminino, pouca encheção de linguiça, dinamicidade e, claro, um splatter bem apurado. E é até interessante notar como o Aja se esforça pra se comunicar com o espectador, lançando luz sobre o final, ainda no decorrer do filme.
Como exemplo, observemos a sequência em que Marie está seguindo o carro do assassino: nela, um dos planos escolhidos por Aja pra compor aquela situação é justamente um close-up frontal em Marie dentro do carro, onde se pode observar que metade do rosto dela está iluminado, enquanto a outra metade está coberta por sombras, enegrecida. Luz e Escuridão, Bem e Mal, deu pra entender? Pois é. Essa foi uma das formas que o filme encontrou para fazer alusão, já à caminho do final, ao fato de Marie possuir o afamado transtorno dissociativo de identidade, que acaba por se revelar no fim do filme.
Bem bacana, não? Eu achei. Só que aí vem o outro lado da coisa – tão, ou mais, importante do que o restante: o texto do filme (substancialmente composto de descrição de situações, dado o número reduzido de falas – o que não é um problema automático, é claro) deixa tantas coisas em aberto, mal explicadas, que a conclusão acaba ficando desamparada, sabe? E isso faz a esperada profundidade psicológica dele soar mais do que forçada. Daí, a dificuldade de muita gente em digerir o final; é de se entender.
Podaria, sim, ter sido melhor (inclusive, se minha namorada não tivesse me spoileado o grand finale), mas, como entretenimento, a franqueza cabe aqui: até que Alta Tensão funciona bem.
A french movie. a french horror movie. hm, is that a good basis ? The answer is: YES !
It scares the s*** out of you, because you don't know, where the killer is to search.
And the ending is just great. i don't want to spoil, so i give you just a good advise: you like horrormovies ? than you have to watch this stuff.
7/10
Definitely gorey I loved it!
2/3 brilliant, 1/3 crap.
There are definitely many elements that I really liked about "High Tension". As a representative of the "New French Extremity" movement, the film has some intense violence and decent special effects. Director Alexandre Aja does a good job of building tension throughout the film, but the characters mostly fall short. For a long time, it's a fairly standard, if effective, slasher. However, there is a twist at the end that ruined the entire film for me. It makes no sense, reveals massive plot holes, and spoils everything you've seen thus far. As a result, the rewatch factor is completely absent. Since "High Tension" is otherwise a competent slasher, you certainly can watch it, but you should also be prepared for disappointment.
Hmmm… just another horror movie where the characters could escape but act illogically…
It’s well made but dunno how the script got the green light…
Meh.... It had a little different twist to it, granted, but I watched this mainly because it was listed on TIME magazine's_Top 10 Ridiculously Violent Movies_ so I wanted to see what all the hoopla was about. It's got some violent scenes in it, yes, but the Saw franchise was much more gruesome, IMO. This was basically just a big creeper movie with very little storyline to it and nothing that was really worth wasting time over. Much of it I simply didn't get, and at my age, it's getting more and more difficult to overlook plot holes this big. Give me a movie that's at least (1) semi-believable or (2) at least fun to watch. Movies like this that are so stupid they don't even make sense... meh.
High Tension (2003) is like pizza dough: it's half baked and I like it more for its potential than anything else.
This second feature by Alexandre Aja--probably my favorite French horror director (he made last year's Crawl and the excellent 2006 remake of The Hills Have Eyes)--High Tension remains one of the few decent French slasher flicks.
The film, though not exceptional does add something new to the genre (his use of multiple locations, one for each act, was clever) and he succeeded in adding a level of suspense that even most seasoned horror directors never achieve. The film is also helped enormously by its cast. Maïwenn (she directed Polisse) plays an excellent victim but the consistently exceptional Cécile de France demonstrates a burgeoning talent here that will carry her through her lustrous career.
The film's biggest flaw, and what makes it only half baked, is the forced ending that feels like a wedgie more than a twist. The film ended 15 minutes too late, but up until that moment, the movie was better than your average pizza.
I did not enjoy this movie unlike many reviews I read after viewing it. Although it has some tense moments I lost interest pretty much as soon as the main character decided to do her utmost to hide from the killer. Allowing him to slaughter a whole family (except the parrots). Her attempts to "flee" or "rescue" or whatever she was trying to do was pretty boring to me.
And then... the twist came. Sure, it was unexpected and pretty shocking purely for the reason that it didn't make a lot of sense. I'm sure many people out there can convince me that I'm wrong and form some kind of cohesive reason as to why it's possible (hell, my brain is doing that as we speak) but... It just wasn't necessary. Except for the shock and awe upon the reveal it didn't make the movie's boring moments better but it sure made it memorable.
This is a much better film than I originally, somehow thought; not that I had seen a trailer or anything, but a friend who usually loves giallo and the films of Jess Franco recommended this - and I'd just seen "City Of The Dead" which was horror of an entirely different fashion to mine - so my expectations were lukewarm. Still, this hit hard! It's a companion to "Wolf Creek" - the first one, not the miserably made sequel - where there's a nasty killer around. All in all: sweet photography and an altogether good film. High tension, indeed.
Shout by Kurtis MoneyVIP 8BlockedParentSpoilers2018-04-07T09:22:10Z
So overrated. Granted, I went into this hearing for years how gory it was....and yes, there was gore. Was it anywhere near the amount to merit calling it "one of the most disturbing movies of all time?" Not by a long shot. Also....this "twist ending" that people hate on so much, I totally get it! It's not even a twist, it's a complete undoing of what we've seen happen on screen to the point it renders the entire movie moot. Oy. Not good. Not good.