High Tension
So tonite I needed to see a flick and I flat out refuse to see Mr. and Mrs. Smith. So instead I decided to go blind into a horror movie and see what happens. I'd seen a few ads for this one called High Tension and it was playing down the street at 10PM. I decided to go for it. On the way there I picked up a plastic thing of watermelon chunks and water. But being the dope I am I had no bag and no big pockets. How would I sneak the watermelon in? It was bulky. I had to think fast! So like, 10 minutes later I figured out I could sort of fold up the goodies in one of the free papers and sort of tuck it under my arm. It worked like a charm. I walked into a pretty empty theater and found my seat. Looking around at the audience I saw lots of semi-creepy guys sitting alone. I frowned at the realization I was sitting in my core demo.
Anyway after sitting through a bunch of previews (all of which I was impressed by and none of which I remember now) this flick started up. Right off the bat, the opening credit for whatever noname studio screamed one thing to me. Foreign! Ugh! This horror movie was gonna be in foreign! I tried to adjust. Ok. It opens with two chicks driving along in a Peugeot (of course) and talking. It's not subtitled too. It's dubbed in english (really badly). It's been a really long time since I've watched something that was dubbed. It set off a big debate in my head about dubbing. I find dubbing super distracting because I focus on how close they get the lipsync (or not) instead of what they're actually saying. I made the decision that I like subtitles more than dubbing. But then I argued with myself that maybe this doesn't apply to horror movies. That for various reasons dubbing in horror flicks should be the one acceptable exception to my new no-dubbing rule. Then 15 minutes later I realized I hadn't been watching the movie at all. I'd just been arguing in my head about dubbing.
Luckily by that point, the dialogue slowed down and the horror part started. And for a good 20 minutes I was sort of grooving with this flick. They made good use of sound. It brought up alot of 'what would you do in that situation?' situations. The murdering was relatively effective and decently gory. I laughed out loud in juicy fear of a particular situation. Soon I forgot about the dubbing and started really watching this movie. But that's when the problems started. Although this movie had an 'artsy' feel, it's really just a because it's french fried. It's nothing more than a ol' regular dopey horror movie. Complete with passionately poor judgment in the victims. Inefficient efficiency in the seemingly efficient killer. All leading up to a twist that only makes you go... Oh!!!! A twist! I get it! Let's twist again! Like we did last summer! But Eurostyle! The only thing that was different about this flick was it had more courteous approach to its own method of stupid.
It's like this, stupid American horror films insist you accept everything unbelievably stupid... even though they know its stupid. Stupid Euro horror flicks seem like they actually believe their unbelievable stupidness.. isn't actually stupid. Not sure which I appreciate more.
Three Good Things About this Movie
- It actually was entertaining for the most part.
- The killing was fine and the off camera stuff had some good dread.
- It hit the ground running once the first drop of blood hit the ground.
Three Bad Things About this Movie
- It kept shooting itself in the foot with bad logic. Like it was playing
'This Little Piggy' with bad logic bullets.
- The only thing the twist did was make you think how badly they actually just messed
up the whole movie.
- The killer looked too much like Luigi from Mario Bros. but without the
moustache.
All in all this is a video rental at best. It's not a bad film. There's actually a pretty good flick in there buried under alot of glop. But as I walked home I couldn't resist replaying the movie scene by scene and ripping it all to pieces. It felt like I left a little trail of cut up film all the way back from the theater. Piece by piece. But there was something in it that made me really enjoy the ripping and ripping... and something else that made me respect the fact that I put in the time and effort to do it at all.