High Tension

Two college friends, Marie and Alexa, encounter loads of trouble (and blood) while on holiday at Alexa's parent's country home when a mysterious killer invades their quiet getaway.

French filmmaker Alexandre Aja writes and directs the slasher film Haute Tension, given the English title Switchblade Romance. Best friends Marie (Cécile De France) and Alex (Maïwenn Le Besco) go out to the countryside to visit Alex's parents. However, a homicidal delivery man (played by Philippe Nahon from Gaspar Noé's brutal movies) ends up at their house and starts killing everyone. Alex and Marie fight for their lives with help from several means of weaponry. Switchblade Romance was shown at the 2003 Toronto Film Festival as part of the Midnight program. The film was aquired by US distributor Lions Gate Films in 2004 and quickly put into turnaround as an NC-17 release, though plans for that were scrapped due to a lack of theater support of the controversial rating. Retitled High Tension, the R-rated version is missing one minute of grisly gore and features a redubbed audio track by star Cécile De France. — Andrea LeVasseur

A relentless, stalk-and-slash fright-fest with a heart-pounding pace as brutal as its husky, truck-driving killer, French director Alexandre Aja's gory sophomore feature will no doubt please fear junkies in search of a truly visceral horror experience. Aja keeps thinks viciously organic by eschewing the current CG-obsession by employing the brutally realistic effects of makeup-effects artist Giannetto De Rossi (a favorite of late gore meister Lucio Fulci) — an asset that makes the violence all the more disturbing and realistic. Of course, with a film that moves as fast as Haute Tension, there's little time for such distractions as character development or dialogue, but — as is rarely the case in many similar films — viewers will never doubt the actions taken by the killer's tough-as-nails prey. Much has been said regarding Haute Tension's love-it-or-hate-it "surprise" twist, and while it seems as if Aja and co-screenwriter Gregory Levasseur at least attempt to remain faithful to the revelation, even dropping an occasional hint for the savvy viewer, the awkward revelation may ultimately derail the entire endeavor for less forgiving viewers. There may be little new here for those who follow the genre, but by keeping the pacing tight and the squirm factor high, Aja has crafted a lean, mean, and unrelentingly tense film that quickly grabs the viewer by the throat and doesn't loosen its grip until the credits scroll. — Jason Buchanan