French director Alexandre Aja makes his first horror flick that presents an unlikely story of romance in this French movie entitled "Haute Tension",also known as "High Tension" or "Switchblade Romance".Cecile De France,Maiwenn and Philippe Nahon star in this film that tells the story of best friends Alex and Marie,who are going to visit and stay at the former's family in rural Southern France, to study.As they sleep on their first night,a sudden appearance of a killer which started to put many people to death.As the killer starts to kill more people,the story later reveals that Marie and the killer,portrayed by Philippe Nahon,are actually one and the same.Apparently,Alex is suffering from a split personality.The reason was also revealed in the end as she surprisingly harbor romantic feelings for Alex.No question that the slasher flick was nicely done although it provided excessive violence while the killer or Marie is at "work".A small brother of Alex being shot by a gun,a father having his head cut and the mother being slashed on the throat proves just that.What about a decapitated head being thrown on the road?No question that the entertainment factor is based on how much blood are being poured and how many bodies are being disposed.No question that love to do these kind of movies.Fans of slasher flicks will definitely enjoy it.

As the headline indicates, after a few minutes I announced the plot to the room. Some said I was wrong, most realized I had ruined the "twist." I give it a 2, because, spoiling the big reveal was fun for me. I enjoy horror films. Different styles, even. But I was suspicious towards the hype surrounding this one. I admit my review of it isn't very kind, perhaps not even fair. I do think it's important, especially for those who haven't seen this, to know the "twist" isn't much--if you're paying close attention, the whole plot will be handed to you, in a nutshell, within the first few minutes of this movie.Just thought folks should know. Sorry to be such a sour reviewer.

I knew this film would be bad when I saw 5 minutes in the little boy in a Wild Wild West cowboy costume, going "bam, bam, bam!" with a toy gun. How cliché. Was I supposed to go "awww, how cute, not the little boy!" as soon as I saw him, because the freaking writer was too lazy to develop his personality and his relationship with his family so I can build some sentiment for him? But I managed to convince myself for the 80 other minutes I sat through that the movie would be as mind-blowing as all these gimps and fools saying it would be. I downloaded the film and cut the movie off 10 minutes before it finished and now I can't wait to get my 640MB of RAM back.Well you were all wrong. I wish when the movie came out that I wasn't 12 years old and American or I would've seen the film and right away reviewed it and boycotted outside of the theaters for everyone to turn away as quickly as possible and save their ticket money for their bills instead.The deep country backdrop is ugly. It put me off it from the beginning but I kept on watching. It's lazy for a choice of scenery as well, because you see that setting so much in horror films, particularly around the time it came out. It's also cheap to use the high corn stalks as a mystery tactic when they foolishly wander in and get lost. "Oh my goodness! Will she come out alive?!" No, I didn't think that, sorry Mr. Director Guy. The secluded location of the house is annoyingly typical of a very bad idea for a tiny family of middle-aged parents, a small child and a chauvinistically thin, young daughter too incapable to defend themselves to live in, as individuals and as a unit. And now these feeble fools are in the middle of nowhere. We already know where this is gonna lead. The excuse of it being "idyllic" and a "place to get away and relax (while 'studying', the least relaxing thing ever)" doesn't work with me.But, again, I continue to squash these blatant facts like nagging cockroaches littered all over my common sense. And alas I keep watching.So never mind the weak force of the plot twist, but even without it this movie is the least heart-pounding "thriller" I've seen in a while. Because the whole time I'm vaguely wondering how this female (the daughter's friend) has survived all these attacks especially after witnessing the serial killer commit them while she's spectating in the worst hiding places ever: under the bed, in the closet, in a public bathroom stall, and in the back of THE serial killer's truck. I'm left to think this guy is the least diligent serial killer out there, which makes this whole poop-show very anti-climactic as it continues. Not good. She also took dammit forever to try and save anyone, which might play into the plot-twist, but it was still aggravating and discouraging to continue the film seeing her be so weak-minded and jelly-kneed.And here I am wanting a kickass heroine or a legendary female villain. And I get a stereotypically butch lesbian (cropped haircut, smokes, thumb ring, hoodie, and muscles) who ironically has a disappointingly weak swing and bad ideas and easy-flowing tears, so it really ruins any chances for her to succeed as the "cool tough chick" she's meant to be compared to her look, which seems like a contrived vision of the (casting) director. On top of that she's up against a stereotypically gruff man playing the serial killer. And he outsmarts her every which way she goes, which is upsetting since I was rooting for her, but it also wasn't surprising seeing how I definitely wouldn't want my life in this girl's hands, even if she didn't end up to be the bad guy. In the meantime, there was no feeling of intensity because the slue of hackneyed murders started so unprecedentedly, due to lazy screen writing. I promise: The only "conversation" the writer bothered to include in between the girls arriving and the murder was: "Did your friend get settled?"First off, to any aspiring horror writer who thinks this movie could serve as a blueprint, let alone Mr. Director Who Bit Off More Than He Could Chew By Also Being the Writer: Did her "friend" get settled? I'm sorry but if you're not running a Bed and Breakfast and are a host to a visitor who's meant to be a family friend and you're letting them stay for days in your home...I'd like to think you'd want to get to know them a bit and ask them yourself if they're settled in fine. OR even better you know them already considering your own child is bringing them for miles outside of civilisation to stay with you... But "did your friend get settled in?" is a bold and insulting indication that the writer didn't give a crap to at least show the visitor and the family and her friend having a nice character-developing and bond-creating discussion over the non-existent welcome home dinner... As far as the skip-a-beat excuse of a transition between the girls arriving and the "action": It literally goes from laughs and giggles between the girls unpacking in the bedroom literally to the doorbell ringing and kapow--foolish murder ensues. But all is well in the end because of the plot twist, right? Wrong.Ugh, whatever, just lame. This is what happens when you copy off of American Hollywood films!!!!The only thing I got from this film was a consolidation of me always telling myself: "Never open the door for a stranger." Not that they could hear me screaming it at the computer screen.

Heading out into the countryside, a woman visiting her family with a friend finds that a vicious serial killer has targeted the house and begun killing them off one-by-one forcing them to find a way of fighting the killer and stopping him from continuing his rampage.This here proved to be quite the fun and highly enjoyable slasher effort. One of the most impressive things about the film is the way it engages all the senses, especially sound, to create a mood of mounting dread and suspense. It's all about being haunted by the squeaks of the killer's shoes on the floor, the labored breathing as he walks up the stairs, or the dull sound his bloodied scalpel makes when he wipes it off on his overalls that play just as important role in this as anything else in the film, and it works absolutely marvelously. The first half of the film is as good as anything out there, being this mounting of suspense through an ingenious use of having the characters survive the slaughter through the house and staying just out eye- view from the killer as every suspense trick is used with hiding in the room where the killer lurks, covering their tracks, and really depending on the presence of the killer there to get most of the suspense out of the film that really work and are quite powerful. That plays into the fact that this is an incredibly gory film offer a slew of highly-violent and vicious bloodletting that's all the better that all of the gore was practical and CGI is nowhere to be seen. The ending does have a lot going for it as well, including a really impressive car chase that ends in a really nice stunt, tons of gore inflicted on all the participants, some incredibly clever stalking scenes and just a relentless pace. Then there's the ending, which while it isn't the best one ever done is really clever and nicely used throughout one that does leave a lasting mark. All in all, this wasn't that bad. Frankly, there's only one thing in here that really doesn't work, and that's the twist ending. In the attempt to blow the mind with the mega-twist that re-writes the logic of all that came before, all that is achieved instead is that it completely evaporates the plausibility of all that did come before it. This brings about so many questions that go unanswered simply by the way it goes about including the twist simply to ensure a successful unimagined twist, as there's that phone call at the gas station getting made, how the car crash happened or what the gas-station attendant was looking at being just several of the unanswered and utterly confusing questions this leaves. Even the little things require that the viewer rewrite the plot as they see fit. That there is the reason why this doesn't work, which isn't that it's a badly done twist, just an illogical one. It's the only issue with this one holding it back.Rated R: Graphic Violence, Graphic Language, Brief Nudity, a mild masturbation scene and children-in-jeopardy.