from Film Forum, 06/16/05You might think that the horror film High Tension would be a surprising alternative to the gratuitously gory, formulaic horror flicks pumped out by Hollywood every year. But according to the film's critics, you'd be wrong. Director Alexandre Aja's film about two young women who head off to study in a secluded house devolves into an implausible, ridiculous bloodbath, as an intruder ties up and kidnaps one of them, provoking the other into a risky pursuit.
David DiCerto (Catholic News Service) says High Tension is "chock-full of stomach-churning gore, including a gruesome sequence during which one girl's entire family is butchered (in increasingly grisly fashion). As if that weren't reason enough not to see it, the final plot twist is so illogical as to be laughable."
Mainstream critics express high disappointment.
