Directed by
Alexandre Aja

Writing credits
Alexandre Aja
Grégory Levasseur

Cécile De France, Maïwenn Le Besco, Philippe Nahon, Franck Khalfoun, Andrei Finti, Oana Pellea, Marco Claudiu Pascu

Two college friends, Marie and Alexa, encounter loads of trouble (and blood) while on holiday at Alexa's parent's country home when a mysterious killer invades their quiet getaway.

The DVD has audio commentary by Alexandre Aja and co-writer Grégory Levasseur and includes both English dubbed and original French language versions. Director and lead actress select-scene commentary with Aja and star Cécile De France as well as three featurettes on the making of the film.
While on a road trip to visit relatives in the French countryside, Marie (Cecile De France) and Alex (Maiwenn Le Besco) encounter a remorseless killer (Philippe Nahon) who breaks into the home and slaughters the family, kidnapping Alex in the process. Only Marie escapes, and in her efforts to rescue Alex, she finds this madman will stop at nothing to quench his insatiable thirst for blood and also finds in herself the will and strength to rescue her friend.
"High Tension" struggles to recapture a time in the history of the horror films when they meant more then a way to kill some time in the local multi-screen Cineplex. See, sometime after the heyday of horror in the late 70' and into the early 80s's going to a horror film became almost an exercise in futility for those of us who genuinely enjoyed being scared. It turned into a time for cheap laughs, T&A (not that I have a problem with that) and juvenile attempts at scaring the viewer that were almost boring.
French filmmaker Alexandre Aja tries to bring the goose pimples and white knuckles back to the genre with "High Tension," a first class splatter film that works hard to destroy the image of the sugar coated horror most teenagers see and want these days.
What "High Tension" does well is use common ideas and then punch them up with the fresh attitudes and emotions they had when these type of movies were really good.
And, Aja works the film honestly, straight forward and showing you what is actually going on in the minds of the protagonists and on the screen itself.
Plus, the film is not easy going in its hunger for blood and violence. Here it increases the emotion of the movie as the depravity and helplessness grows.
This is a mind-numbingly rough film, and not one for the groups that were enticed by the crap coming out today like the American Ring 2 or Grudge.
In almost an hour and a half, there is only about half and hour of dialog which lends to the ominous feel of the movie.
"High Tension" is a welcome adventure back to the stark realism of horror by a director who loves this genre. With Italian makeup artist Giannetto de Rossi's work on the effects, it turns into a film that will terrify the viewer.
While some people did not enjoy the ending, I certainly did. This works perfectly with what the director was trying to do and I think most of the people who see it will feel the same way. It was fun to go back through the film and look for the little things that would have given us clues.
The performances by Cecile de France, Maiwenn and the actor who played the killer are spot on the mark. This film almost makes up for everything else France is not.