10 Horror Movies One Step From Perfection
2. Switchblade Romance (High Tension)
Come on, you already knew that Alexandre Aja’s infamously extreme slasher Haute Tension had to put in an appearance here.
Predictable as its presence on this list may be, there's a reason that this horror is so often singled out by genre fans as a tragic case of one fatal flaw killing an entire film.
After all, just imagine if this terrifically tense, uber-gory slasher was more famous for its many unbearably scary sequences, and not its unintentionally hilarious infamous twist.
The tale of a young girl who flees her remote farmhouse with a college friend after a hulking trucker slaughters her entire family in front of her, the first three quarters of this New French Extremity horror is a testament to the director's skill with brutally effective tension and gore, with the film building up to each shocking death through another nail-biting chase sequence.
Then the viewer discovers that the aforementioned (dainty, diminutive) female friend IS the massive mute murderer, and she's been the one decapitating grown adults with bookcases and wielding a concrete saw, and the film becomes a pretty fun, if outlandish, black comedy instead.