Fairaher The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

Jenna Walter The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

Phillipa Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

Billy Ollie Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

cochran12 I simply loved it!!! normally I hate to subtitles, but it started off so well, it had me at bellow, if you like suspense and end up saying: well, I be famed.... this is a good one to watch subtitles and all. to think I just stumbled across it looking for something else. what a treat.

CorkeyRoberts83 "Haute Tension",also known as familiarly as "High Tension", tells a story of best friends Alex and Marie.They are headed towards the house of Alex's family at a rural area of Southern France to study.As they were sleeping at night,a killer appears and began to kill Alex's father,mother,little brother and takes Alex into captive into a truck.As the killer continues to wreak havoc as he kills the storekeeper wherein he loaded gas for his truck,things began to look awkward after Marie was shown to have killed the killer.It was revealed later that Marie and the killer are one and the same.It was revealed that Marie is indeed suffering split personality - the so- called "twist" of the film.The film directed by Alexandre Aja that starred Cecile De France,Maiwenn and Philippe Nahon was a good slasher French flick.It definitely had elements of the familiar slasher flicks of the past.Added to that,it presented excessive scenes of blood,gore and violence.Slasher flick fans will surely enjoy them.As for the much debated twist - the possibility of Marie and the killer to be one and the same -I felt that many viewers brought it down because of it.Too bad that the story being told from Marie's viewpoint needed some clarification in the scene as that was somewhat taken for granted.Also,the mixture of Marie's imagination and sense of reality was also misunderstood.But nevertheless,with or without this much- debated twist,I still felt that the filmmakers did a wonderful film.

tomgillespie2002 Following a successful run at the Toronto Film Festival, Alexandre Aja's Haute Tension - released as High Tension in most countries apart from the UK, where it was given the title of Switchblade Romance - was picked up for a wide release in the US and had to be heavily edited to achieve its desired R rating. Snipped of a few gore-soaked scenes and, in a desperate attempt to attract more English-speaking punters, was dubbed, a device which only seems acceptable in 1970s kung-fu flicks. Fans were understandably p****d off, especially die-hards of the genre, until the 'Unrated Cut' was inevitably released. Even with the director's original 'vision' restored, Switchblade Romance is still a trashy horror disguised as quasi-art-house, and one that relies on a tacked-on 'twist' ending that becomes more and more questionable after the credits have rolled.Two young women, Marie (Cecile De France) and Alexia (Maiwenn), arrive at the latter's parents house in the French countryside for some time away from the city to work and study. After a tour of the place and dinner, Marie settles down for the night by masturbating. Her fun is interrupted by the arrival of a huge man dressed in overalls (Philippe Nahon), who proceeds to systematically butcher the entire family, including a young boy who is thankfully killed off-screen. Alexia is spared, but is bound, gagged and thrown into the back of a van, but not before Marie can join her without the killer being aware of her presence. And so begins a road trip across country, with Marie and the killer playing a deadly game of cat-and- mouse, as it appears that the psychopath has finally met his match.Ignoring the obvious plagiarism of Dean Koontz's novel Intensity (even down the title!), Aja's movie follows the slasher tropes to a T, attempting to pass itself off a something more than a mere Texas Chain Saw wannabe by filming the action with a blood-sticky sheen. But make no mistake, this is far more interested in riffing on far better movies such as Tobe Hooper's aforementioned classic, as well as Psycho, The Hitcher, Maniac and the film Aja would remake in 2006, The Hills Have Eyes. While the special effects are skillfully done and the movie is anchored by a strong performance by De France, there's little in the way of originality here, further evidenced by Aja's subsequent remake-laden career in Hollywood. For the most part, this is nasty, unpleasant stuff, and one that will undoubtedly satisfy gore-hounds. For those of us who expect more from horror than a few murder scenes strung together by the slimmest of plots, it will leave a bad taste in the mouth.

znegative I just finished watching 'High Tension', and I have to say, I liked it so much that I think I'm going to watch it a second time with my father. It's kind of difficult to pinpoint exactly what makes 'High Tension' so great. After all, it's essentially just another 'Home Invasion' film with a plot that's very similar to 'Ils' and 'The Strangers'. However, Alexandre Aja really knows how to build up suspense-after all, they don't call the movie 'High Tension' for no reason. If you're like me, a person who's become desensitized to most gory or 'scary' films, than I would definitely recommend this one, because unlike so many other movies with similar plots, 'High Tension' is so incredibly suspenseful that I literally could not relax while watching it in my bed.The only drawback of the movie in my opinion is the ending-but once I got used to the little plot twist, and accepted it, I actually felt the movie was better for it.Also, and pardon me for going all over the place about this one, but it's just so god damned good. This movie has your heart pounding right up to the very end. I was so impressed with this movie that I even contemplated watching Aja's remake of 'The Hill Have Eyes', which I saw long ago in theaters and don't recall liking it that much (although I will say I thought the second one was real good).Another thing that I liked about this movie (as opposed to 'Inside') was that it doesn't just rely on gore to creep the viewer out. In a way it was similar to 'Martyrs' in that sense. When the movie does get violent, it's quite graphic, but nothing ever seems like 'gore for gores sake'. When I was a teenager I was all about watching the most graphic horror films available (I was definitely into 'Ichi The Killer' and the first two collections of the 'Guinea Pig' series). Nowadays though, I don't really care for violence without substance (don't get me wrong, I still love 'Ichi', but in retrospect I found the Guinea Pig Series rather boring). After watching some of the most extreme 'torture-porn' titles, I kind of got to the point where that kind of thing didn't have that much effect on me-I honestly found 'Inside' so boring that I turned it off about 3/4 of the way through, because the gratuitous violence seemed so unnecessary, and that's what I love about movies like 'High Tension', 'Kill List' and 'Martyrs'-sure, they truly are quite violent, but I never felt like the three listed films tried to just rely on the gore for shock value or scares. If you're looking for a heart-pounding, truly frightening horror movie, then check out 'High Tension', it's one of those rare horror movies that one comes upon every once in a great while that truly achieves what it sets out to do-scare the living crap out of you.