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BradH812
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
1294 Posts |
 Posted - 06/21/2006 : 8:26:52 PM
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Man oh man, work is about to get hellacious this week, I got tons o’ stuff to do. So, of course, I’m gonna write a review for this site. Gots to have priorities.
Lemme say a few things before I get into it. First off, this movie is extremely graphic. The version I watched was the “Unrated” version, which I think was the version that got an NC-17 rating for the violence before the distributor (Lion’s Gate... Blechhh) made a few cuts to get the R. I won’t dwell too much on the violence, but I won’t shy away from it either. (There are also a couple of scenes that are sexually frank, if not explicit, so be warned.) If you’re easily offended or have a weak stomach, turn away.
Also, the nature of this movie is that it has (yawn) an ending twist that changes everything (gee, how original). For the bulk of the review, I’m gonna treat the movie like it doesn’t have that twist. Up until that twist, the movie is NOT a Jabootu candidate (though it comes close early on). Afterward, it’s firmly in the grip of the Dark Movie God. That should give a very clear view of how badly this thing goes out of control.
Finally, I think I’d better clarify where I stand on something. I’m a pretty staunch conservative, maybe not as far right as our Fearless Leader, but I’m in the ballpark. That said, I’ve tried to stay neutral as far as opinions about homosexuality are concerned. If forced to choose a side, I’d probably vote against legalizing gay marriage, for instance, but I wouldn’t try to stand in anyone’s way if such a measure were passed. (Obviously, if an idiot like Fred Phelps crossed my path, I’d tell him to get far away from me, for his own good... and I’d probably say the same to any radical gay activist; they’re two sides of the same coin.) In all, I think I’d rather take a “live and let live” stance: if you can refrain from making your sexuality the end-all and be-all of your existence, I don’t care what you do in bed. As long as gay issues don’t dominate the discussion, I’d welcome the chance to have a dinner conversation with, say, Ian McKellan or Ellen DeGeneres.
Kind of a roundabout say to say I play it safe, I know, but I’m going to touch on gay issues in mainstream movies — and a theory I have on the subject — later on. The sexuality of the central character is one of the main things (though not the only thing) that send High Tension deep into Jabootuland. And it damn well shouldn’t have been. Hopefully I can clear it up a little better later on.
If you MUST see this thing, see it in the original French. The English dubbing leaves a lot to be desired. Now that that’s out of the way....
The movie opens with a women in a hospital (in southern France, according to the subtitle), whispering over and over, “I won’t let anyone come between us anymore.” We see her from behind in a hospital gown; she has ugly scars on her back. Someone in the background turns on a videocamera, perhaps to get a statement of some kind. It’s not too hard to figure out that this story is going to be a flashback, and that this woman has been through a traumatic experience.
The credits start. We see the woman stumbling through the forest, pursued by... someone. She is bloody and battered, she limps and holds onto a wound in her abdomen. The credits that pop up between cuts are fairly stylish, if not totally original. She comes upon a road and runs out in front of a car. The driver swerves and stops at the side of the road. The woman runs up to the driver and screams “Help me!”
And then the final credit pops up: “Directed by Alexandre Aja.”
Uh oh!!!
I know of one other movie this clown made: the remake of The Hills Have Eyes. If the local system administrators haven’t done yet another purge-every-post routine, it’s on this board. HHE is the only theatrical movie I’ve ever walked out on. Maybe I should have taken the DVD out the moment I saw his name here, but I didn’t. But having actually listened to the commentary after seeing the movie, I have no problem whatsoever calling him by his given name, Alexandre Arcady. I’m sure this pretentious twit would find that annoying, and that gives me a good deal of satisfaction.
Okay, into the movie proper.
The woman wakes up — yeah, it was a dream — and she’s in the back seat of a car. She tells the girl driving the car about the dream, saying that she dreamed she was pursuing herself. The driver kids her, telling her she should have more normal dreams; her response: “Being like other people is such a bore.” Some expository banter follows. Our heroine — the sullen shy one with a severe crewcut and tomboyish demeanor — is Marie (played by Cécile De France — an interesting name considering that she's Belgian, not French); the driver is named Alex (Maïwenn Le Besco). They’re college roommates and best friends, travelling to Alex’s parents’ house way out in the country (it is late afternoon, and Alex says they’re almost there; remember this). They have some cramming for exams to do, and a farmhouse in the boondocks is far away from a big town with any parties or other, uh, temptations. Also, we are told that Alex is somewhat promiscuous, which Marie does not approve of. Alex is certainly the more outgoing of the two, though Marie might also have a bit of the party animal in her as well. Anyway, now that the exposition (which isn’t terrible, but could be better) is done, Alex turns on the radio, which plays a pretty kitschy disco number (I think; I know nothing of French pop music), and Marie climbs into the front passenger’s seat and the two go boppin’ down the road, singing along. This goes on just a teensy bit too long, then....
We’re at Alex’s folks’ farmhouse, which stands next to a big cornfield. Alex’s mom hangs laundry out to dry, while her young son Tom plays around in a cowboy outfit (lemme tell ya, this is no fun if there are no other kids around to play with). Mom tells him to go in and take a bath, and she promises he can put on the cowboy suit again after he’s washed up. She adds that Alex should be here any minute.
Within earshot of the kid making lame cowboy bang-bang noises, there is an old truck that looks like someone took a VW minivan and covered it with armor made out of corrugated metal (the Batmobile this ain’t). Mom and the kid don’t notice this, of course. Inside the truck, a big, hulking, decrepit man (Phillippe Nahon) is busy getting, um, oral pleasure performed on him by a woman. Wait, strike that. It’s a woman’s severed head. We don’t see this up close (thank God; I don’t want to know how this would work), but after he’s, ahem, all finished, the man tosses the head out the window and drives off. Yep, it’s gonna be that kind of movie.
Back to the girls. Now Marie’s in the driver’s seat and Alex is napping, and it’s dark outside. Hey, I thought Alex said they were almost at her folks’ house around 5:00. There’s a word for this: Oops! Anyway, they turn onto the dirt road leading to the house. Alex is chiding Marie for the way she sometimes acts around people (though we never get details), when she tells Marie to stop. She says she saw someone in the cornfield. She gets out to take a look, and Marie chases after her. There’s a bit of faux suspense when Marie loses Alex in the corn (really, the fun’s not gonna begin so soon, is it?), then Alex gets in the car and pretends to drive away. Ha ha, very funny, Alex. Marie isn’t too happy with her (and I don’t blame her; it was a mean prank), but they quickly put it behind them and get back under way.
They get to the house and bring their bags in. We meet Alex’s dad. Dad seems to be a decent guy, though we don’t get to know him too well. He’s carrying Tom, who is still in his cowboy outfit, and falling asleep. Mom’s in the bedroom, having turned in early. Uh, weren’t Alex and Marie supposed to arrive “any minute now” four hours ago? What is the French word for continuity? Dad gives the girls a brief greeting then says good night; he plans to work late in the study then go to bed. Alex shows Marie around, noting that it’s an old house her parents renovated, and that they had some trouble with the locals at first, but not anymore. (Nothing is ever made of this.)
Marie hangs back and watches Alex put Tom to bed then go to say hi and goodnight to Mom. She goes up to the third floor and the guest room.
We get a good look at the guest room and its adjoining bathroom. Marie notes the radiator (no central heat here) and the unplugged phone. There’s a silly musical sting when she sees Alex in the bathroom mirror. Alex offers to turn the heat on, but Marie tells her not to (this is important; read on).
They go back down to the kitchen and have a cup of tea. Alex talks about a guy she’s seeing. Again, she comes across as a bit loose, and Marie doesn’t like it, but she lets it slide. There’s some subtle acting here on Cécile De France’s part that clues us in that Marie’s more than just, uh, affectionate toward Alex. Alex plans to get a shower then hit the sack; she says they’ll start studying in earnest the next morning. Marie goes outside to have a cigarette.
Outside, Marie watches Dad finish work and trudge off to bed, then she lights up and relaxes on the swing set. The scene is shot to give the feel that someone is sneaking up on her, but seriously, do we really believe the main character will be killed off here? (Add to that, the DVD box had a picture of Marie in a fighting stance on the front cover.) Anyway, she looks around and realizes she has a good view in the bathroom window — and Alex can be seen showering. After clearly, um, enjoying the view, Marie heads back in.
She goes back inside, back to her room, and takes a drink of water from the tap (again, this is important, and will pay off in a very effective scene later on). She locks the door, puts on a Walkman and plays a reggae song whose chorus goes, “I love you, but you’re just another girl.” There’s a long shot of Marie masturbating; it’s not explicit, but it’s very frank. And it doesn’t take a genius to figure out whom she’s fantasizing about. The word “lesbian” is never mentioned in this movie, but it’s pretty obvious: if she were ever hard up for cash, Marie could always get a good job keeping the waters from flooding Holland. (Ba-dum-bum.)
Outside, (bum bum BUM) the killer’s truck pulls up. There’s a pretty decent montage of shots of the family asleep, Marie showing she’s not master of her domain, and the approaching truck. Just as she *cough* finishes up, Marie hears the dog barking at the approaching vehicle. She goes to the window to look outside; when the doorbell rings, she goes to the stairs. Dad’s also heard the doorbell, and he goes to answer it.
The killer busts in, attacking and seriously wounding Dad. Marie hears this from upstairs, and she’s understandably scared stiff. After killing the dog.... Look, let’s just say how this bit ends, okay? The killer lops Dad’s head off. Arcady seems to take great pleasure in showing us every detail of this. Oh, God, here we go again (or more accurately, here we went the first time). Aside from the sheer disgust factor, the killer’s method for decapitating Pop is pretty goofy. I’m not going to go into the details, though; sorry, but I just don’t want to replay that in my mind. But I will say that there’s a strategic cutaway to mask the fact that the killer’s m.o. here wouldn’t work.
Mom hears the commotion and goes out to check. (Tom hears it, too, but Mom tells him to go back in his room.) She sees the killer standing over Dad’s headless corpse, and the killer goes after her. From here, we stay with Marie. We just hear Mom’s screaming as the killer attacks (which is far more effective and certainly less nauseating than Dad’s death). Marie panics and runs back into her room — only to find there’s no way out; she’s literally backed into a corner.
I don’t know why I didn’t stop the DVD after the killer shortened Dad’s height by nine inches. But wonder of wonders, this thing actually got pretty good here. Marie grabs the phone and searches desperately for an outlet. She sees one behind the dresser and starts to try to push it out of the way.... but then she hears the killer slowly klumping up the stairs. She thinks fast, and realizes there’s only one thing she can do: find a place to hide and make sure there’s no evidence anyone’s been in the room. She stuffs her stuff in her bag and shoves it under the bed and makes the bed VERY quickly (I’m not sure it’s possible to move this fast, but then I’ve never had a maniac trudging up the stairs to see what that noise was). Then she goes into the bathroom and wipes the sink clean. That did it for me; I like Marie. She then looks at the bathtub with its shower curtain, but I doubt anyone was fooled by this shot.
The killer (who is never named) comes in and looks around. He puts his hand to the radiator to check for heat. Yeah, Marie’s lucky she didn’t turn it on. But this should send a real chill down the spine: this guy may be crazy, but he’s also pretty smart (if Jason were this clever, the Friday the 13th movies might’ve been, you know, SCARY). He looks around. Nothing out of place here. So he checks the bathroom... runs his finger along the sink (I don’t believe it; this damn movie’s actually WORKING now)... and then (oh, Lordy) puts his finger to the tap to feel a single drop of water. Now that he knows someone was in here recently, the killer checks the shower, but it’s empty, natch. He then goes to look around the bedroom again. This scene is made even creepier by the fact that the killer is calm and unhurried; he’s in control and he knows it. He lifts the covers and mattress off the foot of the bed; no one’s under there. He turns away, then we see that Marie is hiding under the bed: she drew her feet up just in time. There is a very tense moment when the killer gives the room a final once-over, clearly debating whether he should leave or not — and Marie holds her hand to her mouth, trying like hell not to make a sound — before the killer finally, finally walks out. Oh, he waits outside the door for a few seconds to see if someone’s gonna make a sound right after he leaves, but Marie’s smart enough to keep quiet until she’s heard him go back down the stairs. And Marie breathes a shaky sigh of relief.
For all the gore that went on before (and some of the goofy writing earlier), this scene had my blood pumping. In terms of acting, sound, photography, and direction, it was damn near perfect. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but Alexandre Arcady knows how to keep a viewer biting fingernails (and it makes me wonder all the more why he resorts to scenes that are not just gory but sadistic). High Tension is turning into an appropriate title for this movie.
The killer goes into Alex’s room, where Alex has been oblivious to what’s happened, as she sleeps with earplugs in her ears. He strokes her hair, then puts his straight razor to her throat. Alex awakes with a start, and the killer puts his finger to his lips. “Shhhh.”
Marie is still frozen in terror under her bed, when she hears Alex struggling and screaming downstairs (the first assumption is that the killer is raping her, but I now think he was just beating the hell out of her and tying her up with a chain). That’s enough to get Marie moving. She gets to her feet and tries to get the phone connected to the outlet... only to discover that it’s a TV plug, not a phone jack, she was looking at. After a moment of fighting back tears, she works up her courage and moves as quietly as she can to the door. She’s able to move nearly silently, as she’s barefoot (and will be for the rest of the movie).
She goes out and slowly makes her way down the stairs; we hear the killer clearly having the upper hand with Alex all the while (he doesn’t want to kill her, at least not yet). There are little details you notice sometimes that just make the show better, and here’s one of them: Marie’s neck muscles are taut the whole way; I hope Cécile De France got paid VERY well for this role. (This doesn’t sound like a Jabootu review here, does it. Read on, ye faithful. But I’m probably gonna gush a bit over De France; her performance is good. Really good.)
Instead of rushing headlong into Alex’s room, Marie makes a beeline for the parents’ bedroom. She searches frantically for a phone or—preferably—a weapon. But she hears someone stumbling around out in the hall, and she hides in the closet.
She can see what’s going on through the slats in the closet door. It’s not the killer coming in; it’s Mom, still alive although very badly wounded. Mom crawls in and goes for the phone (which is placed in a way that Marie couldn’t see it right off)... but the killer heard her; he comes in, brandishing his razor, and slits her throat (graphic, but not as bad as Dad’s murder). She goes down, and we stay on Marie, watching and listening in horror as the killer does... something (we hear slicing and crunching noises offscreen, and blood sprays onto the wall). He then leaves, and after a few seconds of weeping, Marie comes out into the room. She examine’s Mom’s body gingerly... and Mom gasps for breath, whispering “Why me?” before dying. We find out what those noises were: the killer cut off her hand. Not surprisingly, Marie is one step away from being a basket case after this.
Well, we’ve had two sadistic (and, when you think about it, pretty ridiculous) murders here. The second one was VERY similar to the scene that prompted me to walk out of The Hills Have Eyes. I almost cut the DVD off here, and for a while, I wondered why I didn’t. I think I know now, with hindsight. Two reasons. One: the take-your-medicine factor, as in, “You should’ve known what you were in for when you saw who directed this, but you continued to watch; now sit down and take your medicine.” The other reason.... Let me get to that in a moment.
Marie tries the phone, but gets nothing but static. Out in the hall, Tom runs out of his room and out of the house. The killer follows him (unlike Jason in them Friday the Umpteenth movies, THIS killer’s slow and steady walk is actually menacing). After the killer leaves, Marie runs into Alex’s room.
Alex is bloodied, but she’s not seriously injured. Most of the struggle appears to have been the killer getting her chained and gagged. Marie tries frantically to get the gag and chains off. She freezes when she hears Tom running outside, trying to call for his mother. She goes to the window to see Tom running into the cornfield. The killer gets a shotgun out of his truck, goes after the kid... and a moment later, Marie and Alex hear a single shotgun blast. For once, Arcady shows some restraint: we don’t see this act, and we only get one view of Tom’s body later on, seen from high above in dim light.
Marie tries to get Alex (who really IS a basket case right now, understandably) to calm down, even as she herself is fighting back panic. She tells Alex that the killer must want her alive, or he’d’ve killed her already, and that they have one thing going for them: the killer may not know Marie is there. She then promises to come back, and runs to the kitchen to find a phone.
This is the other reason I kept watching. Through this all, Marie hasn’t done anything to help the mother or Tom. And here’s the thing: she’s right. If she had gone rushing in, there’d be two corpses in the parents’ room. Even though she’s scared out of her mind, she keeps her head, limiting herself to choices that might actually be helpful. Anthony Hopkins’s character in The Edge would be proud of Marie. As he would say, even with all the carnage going on, she’s doing the one thing she absolutely has to do: she’s thinking! (It makes it all the more intense to know that the killer is thinking, too. A hero AND a villain with brains: who’d’a thunk it?)
I started to hold out the hope that, as sick as this movie had been up to here, it might actually be worth riding out to see how this young woman would handle things.
And amazingly, for the next 40 minutes or so, it was. In spades. |
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BradH812
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
1294 Posts |
Posted - 06/21/2006 : 8:34:55 PM
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Marie races to the kitchen, barely avoiding being seen by the killer, who is heading back into the house. She tries the phone... but the killer already cut the line. The killer is now dragging Alex through the house toward his truck, so Marie makes a very fast search. What’s in a kitchen? A butcher’s knife, of course! But as the killer is putting Alex in the back of his truck, he hears the clatter of utensils in the kitchen. Cat and mouse time. The killer goes in and searches the house, but Marie has already gotten out, and she moves quietly around the outside (there she goes, thinking again: Marie has locked the side door and taken the keys so the killer will have to go the long way out if he wants to search outside). Again, Arcady shows that he can actually pull this off when he puts his mind to it: I was past biting my nails and was down to knuckles here. Inside, the killer finds a family portrait and uses his razor to cut Alex’s face out. He takes her pic and goes out.
Marie makes it to the bus and tries to reassure Alex; again, Alex is completely gone. She hears the killer heading for the truck. She stands near the open back door, knife at ready: if the killer shows his face, she’ll strike.... But the killer slides the door shut without looking in, padlocks it, gets in the driver’s seat, and drives off.
The killer puts on some music as he drives, so he can’t hear Marie as she tries to use the knife to force that lock off the door. Alex continues to whimper, seeing that there are blood smears all over the walls and ceiling of the hold. Marie tries to console her, telling her that the women that were no doubt previous victims were alone; again, Marie didn’t fit into this guy’s plans.
Up front, the killer puts Alex’s picture alongside several other cut-out photos of young women. Indeed, he has quite a number of, uh, conquests.
At long last, Marie manages to get the lock off the door. But just as she does, the killer pulls up to an all-night gas station, gets out, and starts filling the tank. Marie gives Alex the knife (“in case I don’t come back”) and gets out silently; the killer doesn’t see her, as he’s paying attention to the gas pump. Marie closes the door behind her and tries to tiptoe into the convenience store. But then the pump stops! Marie breaks into a run (doing her best to keep silent). The slo-mo sequence of Marie moving like hell to get into the store before the killer walks around his vehicle just helps to ratchet things up a bit.
Marie keeps her head down and begs the lone cashier to call the police. She sees the killer heading this way, and she runs to find a hiding place. The killer saunters in and makes some small talk with the cashier, whose first name is Jimmy; he and the killer know each other (shudder). The killer walks around shooting the breeze, as Marie scrambles to keep out of his sight. All the while, Jimmy tries to keep his eye on Marie and the killer at the same time; he’s smart enough to figure that she’s avoiding the killer’s point of view for a very good reason (and this is confirmed when he sees blood on the killer’s hand). We all know that Jimmy’s not long for the world, but it really is suspenseful watching Jimmy try to find a way to reach the gun hidden on a shelf behind him while not letting on that he’s scared to death. But the killer asks him to get a bottle of whiskey from a locked display case (and we’re left wondering if the killer knows Jimmy’s clued in on what’s going on). Jimmy goes to get it; as he opens the case, he spies Marie and makes eye contact with her: he’s on her side. I give him about thirty seconds.
Make that twenty seconds. The killer plunges an ax into Jimmy’s chest as he turns from the liquor cabinet, in a scene that is taken directly from The Shining (and at least Arcady admits this in the commentary). It’s never explained why a convenience store would have a fire ax in its inventory, but a movie’s doing something right when you don’t ask questions like that until much later, as in my case. By the way, there’s a cutaway shot of a surveillance camera (this is important, unfortunately).
While the killer finishes burying the hatchet (okay, go ahead and groan), Marie looks for a place to hide. There’s only one possibility: the rest room. Again, she shows a bit of cleverness in running into the men’s room. The killer shows, once again, he’s no fool: he turns off the lights and puts the “CLOSED” sign on the door so no one will come peeping in. Then he goes into the women’s room, muttering, “What were you looking at, Jimmy?” Again, this sequence is grueling, heart-in-your-throat stuff: Marie is hiding in a stall, unarmed, while the killer searches the women’s room, then starts to search the men’s room. Again, it’s helped immeasurably by Phillippe Nahon’s calm, calculating air as the killer, and Cécile De France’s great portrayal of someone BARELY keeping her wits. Yeah, I’m gushing. I can’t say enough about this woman; I’d be very interested to see what other work she’s done.
Just when it looks like he’s about to open the door to the stall Marie’s in... he back off, makes use of one of the urinals, then leaves. Marie, unable to believe her (apparent) good luck, staggers out.
And that’s when she hears the truck start. The killer’s leaving, with Alex still trapped in the back.
Marie runs back into the store lobby and finally, finally gets to a phone. She calls the police and gives them a quick rundown. But she doesn’t know where she is, and she doesn’t know the truck’s license. When the police insist on her trying to tell them where she is, she loses her temper, cusses them out, and slams the phone down. Now, Marie hasn’t always made the best moves, but this is the first (and only) real Idiot Plot moment in the movie. And I’m actually gonna give her a mulligan on this one. She’s scared to death, not to mention exhausted, so one can forgive her for not thinking of the three magic words: “Trace this call!” Also in her defense, the killer has just driven off, and it’ll be several minutes before the police arrive. Marie is now safe, but Alex will certainly die if something isn’t done NOW. She’s gonna have to do this herself.
She grabs Jimmy’s gun and finds his keys. Then she takes his car and goes speeding after the killer’s truck. Marie has just had a good Ellen Ripley moment here. You know what I’m talking about, that moment where you see the heroine’s jaw set and you realize she’s passed the breaking point; she’s too pissed off to be scared anymore.
The killer toys with Alex, pouring booze on her and threatening to drop a lit match on her. And behind the truck, Marie approaches.
The truck turns off onto a dirt road. Marie passes the truck, goes a few hundred yards, then turns off the headlights and backtracks to the side road. (When all is said and done, I’d want her nearby if I was in a bad spot.)
She pursues the killer, following his tail lights, until they disappear all of a sudden. She looks around, wondering what’s going on.... and the truck comes looming up in the rearview mirror. The killer just used Marie’s own little trick against her. He holds his hand out the window and opens it, dropping six bullets out. (This was a stretch. Marie would never be able to see him dropping those bullets.) Marie checks the gun to confirm her suspicions: it’s empty. The killer figured out she was in the men’s room, and he’s been toying with her. He then chases her, a la Duel (yeah, it’s derivative, but it’s actually WORKING now). The killer runs her off the road, and Marie flips the car over and crashes.
Marie stumbles out of the car and makes her way to an abandoned greenhouse nearby. She has minor cuts on her head, streaking one side of her face with blood, and she has a bad cut on her left arm. She finds a piece of cloth (a towel, maybe) and uses it to bandage her arm. This was kind of an eye-roller: a towel? Out here? But then, it may be something the killer left behind once; one gets the feeling this is where he does his dirty work.
Speaking of which, here he comes, flashlight in hand. Marie scrambles to keep out of his sight, then she finds an old fence post with some barbed wire still attached. She wraps the wire around the post, making for a crude mace that would be nastily effective. She and the killer play cat and mouse again, and it looks like Marie’s about to get the drop on him. She sees the light moving around inside the greenhouse, and she goes in crouching low and sneaking up on the light. Nope. The killer outthought her again, taking off his belt, attaching the light to it, and hanging the light from a support beam so it would look like it was panning back and forth. He comes up from behind her and wraps a piece of plastic from the greenhouse wall around her head. He’d certainly kill her now, but here he makes his own bonehead move (and to the movie’s credit, it’s the only serious mistake I saw him make). He removes the plastic and toys with Marie, forcing her to suck on his fingers (ugh!) and saying, “What do you want from Alex? She turns you on? She turns me on, too.” Two things I noticed: he knows Alex by name (which I bought; he could be the dirty old man who lives down the road from them), and he’s figured out what Alex means to Marie (the ONLY direct reference to Marie’s sexuality so far; read on). The killer has forgotten Rule Number One in the Villain’s Handbook: DON’T GLOAT!!!
Marie’s hand closes around a rock, and she bashes the killer on the side of the head with it. The killer is stunned by the blow, and he drops his razor. Marie rises, grabs the barbed-wire-tipped post, and gets Medieval on the killer’s ass. Her beating of this guy is savage, and understandably so, considering what he’s done and what she’s gone through. I gotta admit, I WANTED to see the gore this time, since this sadist is now on the receiving end. More kudos to De France; she really looked like she’d gone around the bend here. After beating him down, Marie examines the body, also forgetting a Horror Rule: the killer doesn’t die on the first try! Sure enough, he comes to and tries to strangle her. But Marie gets the plastic he used on her a moment ago and holds it down over his face, strangling him. And this time, he IS dead.
And now we have the payoff, something which actually makes the whole thing worth it. Marie throws her head back and lets out an animalistic SCREAM!!! De France must’ve blown out her voice on that one! Then Marie collapses back, sobbing.
With all the depravity that came in the first half, this second half has made up for it. It was nasty in a good way, VERY well acted, and gruelingly intense (again, the title was very apt). It veered close to Jabootu-land, but it managed to come back strong and climax with that great primal scream.
Now look at the timer on the DVD player. 77 minutes. High Tension runs 91 minutes. Uh oh!!!
Not counting credits, we still have about 12 minutes to go. But the story’s over, right? I can imagine five minutes for a resolution, but 12 minutes?! Ah, there’s the rub. The movie ain’t over.
Now, let me take a side trip before getting into the denouement. When Brokeback Mountain hit the theaters last year, I was amused by a lot of critics saying, “Don’t dismiss this as a ‘gay cowboy’ movie” when “gay cowboy movie” were the first words used to sell the damned thing. I heard a lot of gay rights groups praising this as some sort of landmark movie. If any of them had asked me, I would have said, “You’re doing this the wrong way, ya bozo! You want a movie that’ll get gays and lesbians accepted by the mainstream? Here’s what it would have to be: a mainstream genre movie — thriller, horror, mystery — in which the main character just happens to be gay. The lead’s sexuality is not the core theme of the movie, and it may only be alluded to once or twice. If that sort of movie hits the market and becomes a big hit, then you’ll have your milestone.” While High Tension wasn’t a big moneymaker, its treatment of its main character would fit that profile perfectly, up to this point.
As goofy, derivative, and downright sadistic as this movie was been, it got good in the second half, and even at its worst it had one major saving grace: Marie. She is a fantastic character. She seems sullen, shy, and maybe a bit harsh (though never mean) at the beginning. Then when all the bloodletting starts, she is understandably scared to death. She doesn’t save Mom, Pop, or the little brother, because she is powerless to do so. Same thing with Jimmy (you might say that she indirectly causes his death, but it honestly isn’t her fault). There’s nothing superhuman about her; she’s clearly in way over her head. And then, when she knows no one else can possibly save Alex, she goes into action. Marie is intelligent, resourceful, driven, and very, very brave. She is someone you can admire and root for, and she is completely believable. All of this is slammed home by a letter-perfect performance from Cécile De France. I’d never heard of her before seeing this movie, but this lady is one hell of a good actress. Marie may not be the sunniest of personalities, but she is a full-blown, unqualified hero. Up to this point.
(long pause)
Now take those last two paragraphs and throw them out, because this movie’s about to go screaming into Jabootu territory with what may be the worst twist ending ever!
The police have arrived at the gas station and are checking the area out. I guess they traced the call, after all. One of them sees Jimmy’s body and says, “Looks like we got a homicide.” Gee, I wonder if this detective is named Jacques Clouseau? And then they check out the surveillance tape. It shows Jimmy getting axed... by Marie.
Aw, hell, no. It didn’t register with me for a moment, because my mind resisted the awful truth: the movie has just set its own self-destruct mechanism. Time to detonation: 60 seconds.
Back at the greenhouse, Marie gets in the truck and manages to get the chains off of Alex. She babbles on about how she got him, how they’re safe, how she’s sorry she couldn’t save the others, but that’s okay because she and Alex are together and nothing can come between them. She grins and giggles like a maniac all through this scene. (De France seemed to approve of this twist in the DVD commentary, but I noted a distinct drop in the quality of her acting here; maybe it’s wishful thinking, but....) Once free, Alex goes ballistic, waving the knife in Marie’s face, telling her to stay the hell away. We see brief flashbacks of Marie slaughtering Alex’s family. Alex slashes Marie's face, plunges the knife into Marie’s belly, and runs away, leaving the knife behind. Tell ya what, anyone did that to MY family, I’d make sure they were good and dead.
Marie pulls the knife out, and she’s morphed into the killer. Ah so, a split personality! That’s right, boys and girls, our strong and resourceful heroine is really a Psycho Killah, Qu’est-ce que c’est, ba-ba-BAHHHH-ba ba-BAHHH-BAHHHH-BAHHHH!!! I’m gonna let this movie, and Arcady, have it in a moment. But right now, let’s just get to the end of this stupid thing, okay?
The killer goes to the truck and pulls out another weapon in his (her?) arsenal: a power saw that looks like a circular saw and a chainsaw got together and had a kid. Marie/killer starts it up, yells “You can’t escape from me, bitch!” and gives chase. Phillippe Nahon was MUCH better as a cold-blooded killing machine; here, he looks silly — as does De France when we see shots of her running with the saw.
Alex makes it to the side of the road, where a car is coming up. She runs out in front, and the driver swerves and goes into the ditch. Alex runs up to the driver and begs him to get her out of there. He motions her to get in.
The driver looks in his side mirror and sees the killer — MARIE’S NON-EXISTENT PERSONALITY!!! — coming up fast with the saw. He tries to start his car, but of course the engine (yawn) won’t turn over. I never knew French cars cut off when you hit the brakes! Oh, there’s a shot trying to explain it: steam’s coming out of the front. Only thing is, he clearly didn’t hit the ditch hard enough to do any damage. So he tries to start the car while the killer runs up, jumps on the hood, and plunges the saw into the windshield... and into the driver’s chest. Arcady just couldn’t resist. Gory and disgusting once again, but my eyes were glued to the screen, fascinated by this train wreck unfolding before me. (It was quite amusing to see one shot in which the driver act like he was being eviscerated by the saw, when the saw clearly wasn’t touching him.) Alex, of course, does nothing but scream like an idiot in the back seat.
The killer (need I remind you that we are now seeing things from Alex’s point of view, and this man is a figment of MARIE’s imagination? No? Good.) tries to do the same with Alex, but the saw won’t reach her. Uh, right. He tries all sides, shattering most of the car’s windows, but Alex manages to find a convenient crowbar inside the car, take it, and get out the other side. The killer shows he’s lost quite a few brain cells: he doesn’t see Alex get out until she’s several yards down the road.
Alex pulls a big hunk of glass out of her heel (which, in the real world, would have cut her Achilles tendon, rendering her unable to walk). The killer comes up, brandishing the saw, saying “You’d drive a woman crazy, you little slut,” and asking Alex if she loves him (her?) and saying she doesn’t.
Alex finally gets out a “Yes, I love you.” The killer puts the saw down and morphs into Marie again. Alex reaches up and kisses Marie — I admit I’d find the sight of these two kissing pleasant, except (1) they’re covered head to toe in blood and (2) I’m so pissed off at this movie that I don’t give a damn. Anyway, the kiss is a ruse, because Alex still has the crowbar, and she rams it into Marie’s chest; the tip pokes out her back. Marie goes down, whispering, “I won’t let anyone come between us anymore.” Yep, the words spoken at the beginning.
Dissolve to the white room we saw at the beginning. Yes, kiddies, Marie is in an institution, in shackles. Outside this room, Alex looks at her through a one-way mirror (would you ever WANT to see the person who killed your family ever again??) and asks an off-screen doctor if Marie can see her from inside. (Oh, gee, where could THIS be going, we wonders?) The doctor says she can’t, but Marie turns slowly to look where Alex is, and in a final moment that only 99% of the audience can see coming, she lunges at Alex. I wouldn’t be scared of this old trick even if she WASN’T chained up.
And the final credits roll, leaving me to ask: What the HELL happened?!?!
Afterthoughts
The answer, of course, is director Alexandre Arcady. I’ve read that this movie is so similar to Dean Koontz’s novel Intensity that a copyright violation suit would not be a big surprise. But if Arcady ripped off that book, the ending was all his own. L’idiote.
One of the better jokes in the movie Adaptation concerned writer Charlie Kaufman’s fictional brother Donald penning a script for a movie entitled “The Three,” about a detective searching for a kidnapper and his victim. The final twist was that the detective, the kidnapper, and the victim were all the same person. It was honestly funny watching Charlie try to explain just how stupid this idea was, and Donald missing the point entirely. The punchline for the joke was that a Hollywood studio actually bought the script.
I doubt Charlie Kaufman or Spike Jonze could have ever dreamed that Alexandre Arcady would one-up them... by doing this for real. I’m not going to bother listing the logical holes or physical impossibilities here, as it would take up another ten pages. And I don’t think I have to: an eight year-old who has never seen a movie before would roll his eyes at this stupid ending! In the commentary, Arcady tries to explain it away, saying the entire first 77 minutes of this movie is “Marie’s delusion.” I have a much simpler explanation: Arcady does for bulls%!# what Stonehenge did for rocks! That goes for the ending AND for his commentary (at least twice, he lets slip that even HE doesn’t know how the ending could work).
This ending isn’t just stupid; it’s offensive. I’ve read a lot of reviews that accuse Arcady of homophobia in the ending. Even though I can’t stand that PC term, they have a point: Marie ends up making Sharon Stone’s character in Basic Instinct look benign.
But let’s throw out any accusations of gay-bashing. This ending is STILL infuriating. Marie is a heroine worth caring about. She’s far from perfect, she’s scared, and yet she presses on. Damn, man, this lady was cool! And to hit us with THIS at the end! God Almighty!
In Hills Have Eyes, I detected not just contempt for the audience, but open hostility. And I just got another dose of it here. But HHE didn’t feature a strong hero or a really scary villain. And Hills turned a profit. That tells me one thing: “Alexandre Aja” will continue to get work in Hollywood, even though he’s already run out of ideas and is getting meaner and meaner.
So, let me close, with the following for Cécile De France. Mademoiselle, if you ever come to America to make movies, PLEASE make sure you star in something worthy of your considerable talent.
As for Arcady, I’ve said it before, but it bears repeating: Monsieur, kiss my ass! |
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Greenhornet
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
1791 Posts |
Posted - 06/22/2006 : 6:48:17 PM
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quote:
If any of them had asked me, I would have said, “You’re doing this the wrong way, ya bozo! You want a movie that’ll get gays and lesbians accepted by the mainstream? Here’s what it would have to be: a mainstream genre movie — thriller, horror, mystery — in which the main character just happens to be gay. The lead’s sexuality is not the core theme of the movie, and it may only be alluded to once or twice. If that sort of movie hits the market and becomes a big hit, then you’ll have your milestone.”
I agree 100%! I'm a Nancy Drew fan and I once read what was supposed to be a gay parody of the Nancy Drew and the Cherry Ames series in three books, but it was instead about two GAY women who JUST HAPPENED to be a detective and a nurse. I did my best to give it every chance, but it just got worse with every book.
Take the example set by Honor Blackman in The Avengers: She didn't think that the writers could write for a strong woman, so Blackman told the writers to write as if ehr character was A MAN and she would then change it for a WOMAN.
Also, the Star Trek character "Uhura" wasn't PLANNED as a black woman, but it evolved that way durring auditions.
"The Queen is testing poisons." CLEOPATRA, 1935 |
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BradH812
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
1294 Posts |
Posted - 08/20/2006 : 12:52:55 AM
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A little postscript:
I picked up Intensity in the bookstore earlier this week, and I'm now about halfway through it. Right now, it's veering into very different territory from its beginning, but the first third of the book was taken almost verbatim for High Tension. There are a few differences, but they're almost on a par with Vanilla Ice saying "Ice Ice Baby" isn't a rip-off of "Under Pressure" because of "that extra little ding".
I'm shocked than Dean Koontz didn't sue the filmmakers' asses off for plagiarism. |
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andy80
Diocesan Ecclesiarch of the Sacred Order of Jabootu
81 Posts |
Posted - 10/09/2006 : 6:16:10 PM
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| I just watched it about a week ago and think that you may have given it too much credit. I really found this to be just an average slasher flick up until the twist. I may have been influenced by reading your review and knowing what was gonna happen, though. And yes, that was one of the most pointless twist ending of all time. |
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jackspencerjr
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
262 Posts |
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High Tension
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