Haute Tension starts off as a fairly effective, very violent slasher movie involving two young women trying to escape a demented killer who has offed one of their families in a brutal manner. It could have made for a tight little movie, but oh no. Director Alexandre Aja has to go all complicated and sensationalist by turning the murderer into one of the girls who apparently has a psychotic lesbian crush on the other girl. This has to be the worst ever plot contrivance I have seen in a horror movie. It takes the psychological momentum built up in the viewer and spits it back in their face. As soon as this event has happened, the movie ceases to make sense and becomes a confused jungle of glaring questions and plot holes that will excite more of your brain's capacity than the rest of the goings on in the film. It is a bit like the horror equivalent of waking up and finding Bobby Ewing in the shower after a dream that he was dead. Yet the film is actually well regarded for the most part by chumps who are willing to swallow this drivel and think that it is 'revolutionary'. I don't mind surprises in horror films, in fact they can make a film even better (see Les Diaboliques) but Aja had his head up his ass when he was directing Haute Tension which is the worst example of the frequent pretentiousness of the New French Extremity
My first film watched was Carrie aged 2 on my dad's knee. Educated at The University of St Andrews and Trinity College Dublin. Fan of Arthouse, Exploitation, Horror, Euro Trash, Giallo, New French Extremism. Weaned at the bosom of a Russ Meyer starlet. The bleaker, artier or sleazier the better!
