High Tension
The 2003 French horror hitHigh Tensionis remembered by many for its surprising wrench ending , but that twist does n’t stick out up to scrutiny . From sentence to fourth dimension , a certain type of foreign repugnance catch on for a period with American repugnance fans . For case , the 2000s meet lots of Asian ghost picture show , such asThe RingandThe Grudge , gain popularity , even leading to remaking . The 1980s saw surreal , incubus - like films from Italian director likeDario Argentoand Lucio Fulci make their way stateside .
Another tendency in foreign language horror view on in America was the New French Extremity moving ridge of films in the 2000s . One of the flag bearers of this movement in horror wasHigh latent hostility , akaHaute Tension , akaSwitchblade Romance . Directed byAlexandre Aja , High Tensionfocuses on two female friends who head to one of their parents ' houses for a reposeful weekend . That is until aserial killershows up and invades the home , not waffle to kill articulate parents and target the two friends next .
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Or at least that ’s whatHigh Tensionfirst is likely about . As anyone who ’s seen the film can attest , the story ends with a lurid twist that casts everything the viewer has seen into doubtfulness . The problem is , while it might at first satisfy , the twist does n’t hold up to any kind of literal examination .
High Tension’s Ending Twist Isn’t As Good As You Remember
High Tension’stwist endingsees Marie ( Cecile de France ) , one of the two friend at the nitty-gritty of the story , revealed to have been the cause of death the whole time . Marie was in fact secretly in love with her skillful friend Alex , and also a delusional , psychotic , murderer . It ’s surely a surprising exploitation , and even more surprising is that both Marie and Alex survive the film . However , as clever as the twist might first appear , it does n’t sustain up . Even grant the fact that much of the story was seen from Marie ’s undependable dot of view , Marie would ’ve need to be in two places at once to pull off a murder fling even remotely like the one show inHigh Tension .
The most egregious example of this actually come very early inHigh Tension , when the killer - a man in Marie ’s psychotic belief - is see sitting in a motortruck performing a sexual practice act with a dupe ’s break up header . The job is , as presented in the film , Marie and Alex had yet to even arrive at the town in which the killer was apparently already present . Plus , if the male killer live only in Marie ’s judgement , it reach absolutely no sense that the consultation would be shown a vista in which he appears to operate on exclusively independently of where Marie is at the time . Aja is a very talented theatre director , and has kick the bucket on to make quite a few great film , but the hand he co - wrote failsHigh Tension , rendering the wrench illogical and confusing .
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