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Created Apr 28, 2008 05:10AM PST • Edited Apr 28, 2008 05:10AM PST

1. Quality

2. Summary

   Perfect 5.0

   An ultra-violent claustrophobic horror that confirms Alexandre Aja’s standing as one of the most provocative and talented genre filmmakers working today, “High Tension” (or “Haute Tension” in it’s native France, “Switchblade Romance” in the UK) inserts into it’s mad, frightening 91 minutes set-pieces both original and classical as Marie (Cecile De France) battles to save herself and friend Alexia (Maiwenn) from a mysterious, violent stranger who’s interrupted a stay with Alex’s family by beginning a brutal slaughter. Fierce, visceral and appropriately tense, “High Tension” is one of the best examples of modern day horror you’ll find.

4. Acting

   Really Great 4.5

5. Male Stars Really Great 4.5

   Philippe Nahon is excellent as villain murderer Le Tueur.

6. Female Stars Perfect 5.0

   Cecile De France is brilliant, emotionally sound and thoroughly endearing as desperate-for-survival Marie, whose attempts to escape take her into increasingly compromising and dangerous situations. Maiwenn, meanwhile, is also great with less to do once the vicious killer shows up on the scene and much of the focus switches to Marie’s story.

7. Female Costars Great 4.0

   Filling out the only notable female role beyond the leads, Oana Pellea does well for little screen time as Alex’s mother and gets part in one of the movies most violent and creepy scenes.

8. Male Costars Really Great 4.5

   Franck Khalfoun has the most sizable supporting male part as Jimmy, a gas station attendant who crosses paths with Le Tueur and Marie and doesn’t come out of it very well. While Andrei Finti and Marco Claudiu Pascu show up for a brief period as Alex’s doomed father and younger brother, respectively.

10. Film

    Great 4.0

    Alexandre Aja is one of the horror genre’s most promising directors and does a typically brilliant directorial job here. The dialogue spoken between the characters in Aja and Gregory Levasseur’s screenplay is appropriately thin and lacking the explanatory tone too often afforded characters in the slasher genre. The music score that comes about occasionally massively compliments the film’s overall tone, while the film itself makes for some gross and unpleasant images slightly hampered by a low-budget aesthetic.

11. Direction Perfect 5.0

12. Play Great 4.0

13. Music Great 4.0

14. Visuals Great 4.0
15. Content

16. Edge

    Sordid 3.1

    A couple scenes of sexual nature (a boob shot and a masturbation scene) couples with some of the usual bad language and an ultra-violent nature.

17. Sex Titillating 1.7

18. Violence Monstrous 5.0

19. Rudeness Salty 2.5

21. Reality

    Surreal 2.5

22. Circumstantial Surreal 2.5

23. Biological Surreal 2.5

24. Physical Surreal 2.5