Ultra-intense, unabashedly nasty and a big hit in Europe last year, the French slasher film High Tension (also known as Haut Tension and as Switchblade Romance) finally gets its American release, trimmed of a few gory moments in order to snag an audience-friendly "R" rating, and with several scenes newly dubbed in English to accommodate the subtitle-shy, multiplex masses.
The movie survives the editing but is almost undone by the atrocious dubbing, complete with inexplicable cultural confusions such as a French character in France complaining about "redneck" neighbors. Luckily, the movie's best moments are essentially dialogue-free, so the dubbing is only occasionally a serious distraction (primarily during the movie's opening set-up), and most of the film's steadily mounting tension and big shocks are communicated just fine.
With loving echoes of Last House on the Left, Halloween and I Spit on Your Grave bouncing about all over the place, High Tension is basically a straight-up, old-school slasher flick, albeit one crafted handsomely enough to almost transcend its influences, and with a curious and controversial 11th-hour twist that redefines the movie's sexual politics. A family locked in an isolated country home with a psycho killer is really all you need to know about this one, but proceed with caution. Stars Cecile de France, Maiwenn le Besco and Philippe Nahon.
High Tension (R) opens June 10 at local theaters.
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-Lance Goldenberg
This article appears in Jun 8-14, 2005.