High Tension (Fr: Haute tension)

If you can still be horrified, this is a first class horror flick. I can't be horrified by anything short of a real news story anymore. When the news shows people jumping out of high floors of burning buildings, when the Internet gives me the option of watching a beheading...that can horrify me. However, movies just can't do it anymore.

However, if you are someone who gets white knuckles, if you jump or gasp or even scream at sudden events under tense circumstances, if you grab the arm of the person next to you or close your eyes to avoid seeing things, then this movie is for you.

Like many horror movies, the story is easily summarized: Two students, one French and one American, are driving into the French countryside to visit the American girl's family (yes, the Americans live in France...and it turns out, we learn, that they've lived in France for a while). The family consists of the American girl, her mother and father, and their young son.

During the night, she is awakened by the sounds of what we are seeing: the father, mother, and young boy are murdered one-by-one, and the American girl is bound and kidnapped. The girl is taken to a truck that looks a bit like a clone of the one from the Jeepers Creepers movies. Our heroine manages to get into the vehicle and ride with the victim, who she cannot release because the girl is bound with chains, not ropes.

To make a long story short, of course there's a confrontation between our brave and innovative heroine and, as in almost all of these movies, of course, the bad guy has to be killed more than once.

But then, the story takes a very unexpected turn which, to me, was very unwelcome as well. I won't totally condemn the movie on this basis, because you may find the twist at the end less objectionable, especially if you're young and haven't seen several thousand movies in your lifetime, as I have.

The complaints I have against this movie are: 1) The movie is sometimes dubbed and sometimes subtitled with little rhyme or reason to it. 2) When there is dubbing, the dubbing is sometimes bad with a noticeable mismatch between what you are hearing and the motion and shape of the lips. 3) People doing things that real people probably wouldn't do.

In case of the latter complaint, it must be said, horror movies depend upon people doing things that real people probably wouldn't do. For example, in the beginning of the movie the girls are driving at night on a dark road that runs through a corn field, and one of the girls stops the car, says that she thinks she saw someone out in the field, and runs into the field to investigate.

Another example, there is a point when our heroine realizes that mayhem is going on down below, but does she go out the window (yes, she's on the third floor, but believe me, I'd take a chance on a two-story jump rather than having my throat slit from ear to ear, wouldn't you?). She also didn't think "Is there anyone here I could save?" Instead she hid under her bed. And (get this!) the killer even came into her room and instead of looking under the bed to see if anyone was there, just lifted a corner of the mattress.

All that said, if you like horror movies in general, I think you'll find this one above average.