60/60 Extra: Haute Tension.

I have to admit that I'm a fan of director Alexandre Aja. The Hills Have Eyes remake was intense and pretty dang good. Mirrors was much better than expected. Piranha was decent fun. But his first big film wasn't even in English. No, he busted onto the scene in 2003 with the French horror flick, Haute Tension (High Tension). I've been wanting to see this movie for years, especially since I heard it had a crazy twist ending. Unfortunately, I couldn't stay away from the twist forever, and I had it spoiled for me. But did that throw off the rest of the film for me?

The movie tells the story of Marie (Cecile De France) who is going with her friend Alex (Maiwenn Le Besco) to her parents' farm home. But when a psychotic truck driver (Philippe Nahon) shows up and kills Alex's whole family and kidnaps Alex, it's up to Marie to save her friend from certain death.

Like the title says, the tension is rather high throughout the film. Though speaking of titles, I read something rather interesting. Apparently this movie completely rips off Dean Koontz's novel Intensity (even taking the root word for the title). I used to be a big fan of Koontz, though I hadn't read that one. But even looking up information on the book, I have to say--it's damn near plagiarism what this movie did. It should have given at least inspirational credit or something. IMDb gives Koontz credit, but I don't think the official filmmakers did, which stirred some controversy.

Regardless, the movie was intense and entertaining. The twist, as I'd been warned, doesn't make a lick of sense. I mean, a lot of you think the twist in Book of Eli doesn't make sense because things don't match up... just check this one out. Just thinking about it will make your brain explode. Still, the movie mostly overrides its twist and stays a good, fast ride.

I don't have a heck of a lot to say about the movie. Let's put it this way: If you're a fan of French horror--or even The Hills Have Eyes remake (particularly the portion of the film where Doug slowly becomes a badass)--you'll enjoy this movie. It's well made and entertaining. It's definitely not perfect, but you get what you want out of it. And it also continues my theory that I'll enjoy anything Luc Besson touches (even though he's only an uncredited co-producer in this case).


I Am McLovin!

(P.S. That ends "What A Twist!" Month. It was a lot less fun than I thought it would be. I didn't love it or hate it. I actually came off rather blah about the whole month. Next we'll be getting into a particular month that I've both been looking forward to and dreading. There will be a lot of you that won't care about this particular month of the 60/60 List--mostly because it's full of disturbing and/or horrific films where just even one would make the average viewer want to crawl into a hole. And I'm taking on 9. So stay tuned for WTF Month!)