High Tension (Haute Tension)
Starring Cécile De France, Maïwenn Le Besco
Written by Alexandre Aja and Grégory Levasseur
Directed by Alexandre Aja
THE MOVIE
A good ending to a film should be, as the fella says, surprising yet inevitable. Well, the ending to High Tension was neither, at least not in a positive sense.
It all starts off so well. High Tension chugs along rather nicely as a French Texas Chainsaw Massacre. (Paris, Texas perhaps?)It’s really effective at creating genuine scares. It has a nice balance of the scary trifecta (written about by Stephen King in Danse Macabre) of Terror, Horror and Revulsion. I saw the film in the theater, and believe me people were squirming.
Plus, it wasn’t littered with that jive b-movie morality. Our lead was a lesbian, and the film was comfortable at showing this thing. She wasn’t going to be punished for her sexuality. The first people to be killed off weren’t loose teenage girls or horny jocks. High Tension looked to be taking a road less traveled for the horror genre.
But then something happens. I started to see it coming halfway into the picture. At first, I denied the signs, saying to myself, “certainly, that thing can’t happen; the film wouldn’t make any sense.” This perception of the movie’s potential climax started to hang over my head like the proverbial sword of Damocles.
I started pleading to the film. “Movie, you better not do that thing! C’mon movie! Prove me wrong!”
THE UNHAPPY ENDING
And then High Tension spoiled the whole damn thing by presenting me with the ending I was so dreading. You see, the film ends with the “shocking” twist that the protagonist and the antagonist are actually the same person. You know, twist #9 b : the Fight Club twist? Fight Club barely gets away with this twist. First off, I am skeptical of Disassociative Personality Disorder (i.e. multi-personalties) right off the bat. Secondly, it doesn’t always make sense in the context of the movie world. If you re-watch Fight Club, there are a couple of times when you gotta say, “How could this possibly be just one guy?” or “So, he just threw that bag to himself?”
BUT with High Tension, the whole of the goldurn movie id made up of those moments. There are great chunks of film which must be wholly imaginary. You don’t hide from yourself! You can’t have a car chase by yourself! What the f*ck? Have I suddenly slipped into that Donald Kaufmann script from Adaptation?
The ending is absurd and ruins what could’ve been a great horror flick.
HOW TO FIX THE ENDING
Don’t twist. Simple, isn’t it? Just don’t twist.
