主演：影片内详

I caught a 7:15pm screening of this French psychological thriller/horror movie at the Toronto International Film Festival. Before I get into the "commenting" I want to say how great it was to watch this film with obvious horror buffs in attendance. All their reaction, especially to the gore was stellar. It made the film all the more exciting. What made the screening even more exciting is that director Alexandre Aja and his silent screenwriter Gregory Levasseur were there to introduce Haute Tension and they did a quick Q&A at the end of it.

　　Haute Tension which translates to "High Voltage" (or is it "High Tension"?), but the English title for some reason is Switchblade Romance is a typical serial killer taking care of business film. He stalks out a house in a rural area, and decides to get rid of its occupants. Pretty simple stuff, right? Well, not quite. Without giving anything away I'll just say that the film has a twist ending which adds a certain level of sophistication to it, but at the same time it's a cliche. Instead of the "twist" dropping my jaw in disbelief as I'm sure it was intended to do, it only made my eyes roll. The twist also complicated the plot to the point where it ceased to make logical sense. It was only during the Q&A at the end of the film where the director was requested to explain possible holes in the film and as he did everyone kind of let out a collective "Oooooh". In any case, 1 point must come off for that silly twist.

　　The serial killer of Haute Tension reminded me of Rusty Nails from Joy Ride - he had that rugged dirty trucker appearance. Oh, and his truck was definitely stolen from The Creeper. I'm sure The Creeper would want revenge for that so expect to see The Creeper vs. The Killer from Haute Tension in the near future. Possible title: "Dude, Where's The Creeper's Truck?!?". I guess they've got the villian down right, but he's nothing we haven't seen before. The killer is played by Philippe Nahon who I saw in Gaspar Noe's I Stand Alone and Irreversible. He did a decent job portraying a big bulky emotionless yet clever killer. I've always found killers with intelligence a lot more frightening than those without it since they are a lot harder to fool and are capable of playing mind games making the situation on the heroine (Marie played by Cecile De France) much tougher.

　　The inspiration for Haute Tension as mentioned by the director during the introduction came from horror films from the early 1980's. One scene in particular was ALMOST entirely lifted from Maniac. As a matter of fact, it was clearly a nice respectable homage which can only be appreciated fully by those who have seen the film. Haute Tension did have that gritty vibe going for it which I am sure would have been a lot more glossy if Hollywood had made it.

　　Now, for the gore. There is some seriously nice gore in this film, and it showed most of it with sadistic glee reminiscent of a Fulci film. A brilliant decapitation and a throat being slit stood out for me. However, the film did hold back on the gore as it could have been much more brutal but they decided to not show it for whatever reason. There was a barbed wire beating and a shotgun blast which they chose not to show...oh well, guess we all have our limits unless your name is Gaspar Noe or Ruggero Deodato.

　　All in all Haute Tension was average. There was really nothing special that stood out. Good gore, good intense moments, but still quite forgettable.

中文星空 首页 在线电影