There isn't a single new idea in Alexandre Aja's relentless new slasher flick– and that is exactly how it should be. "High Tension" isn't looking to reinvent the genre but to celebrate it. After all, why tinker with a successful formula? The result is a distilled version of what a good horror flick is supposed to be, and at 85 short minutes, "High Tension" packs a sharply focused punch – like the quick stab of a razorblade to the jugular.
Alex and Marie, two young students played by Cecile de France and Maiwenn, retreat to Alex's family home, secluded between corn fields in the French countryside, ostensibly to study "international law." But as anybody knows who's ever seen a scary movie, cornfields waving in the moonlight and creepy wind-up toys don't bode well for the budding scholars. When a homicidal maniac in a beat-up Citroen truck makes his shocking entrance, the screaming starts.
With shameless glee, Aja plunders every horror flick cliché. But unlike Wes Craven, he doesn't play the knowingness for jokes: he means every cut phone line and blood-dripping axe. De France and Maiwenn's faces, contorted with anguish, do their part in selling the terror without any of the winking meta-humor so common to Hollywood horror.
Subtitles don't play well at the multiplex, so "High Tension" arrives in America partially dubbed into French-accented English, while other parts are left subtitled. The result is somewhat confusing and draws undue attention to itself. But no matter: it doesn't take long for the dialogue to become secondary to the sounds of slashing and the lyrical gurgling of blood spouting from freshly opened necks.
