Point by Point: High Tension 3/10

Two friends go to one's parents' vacation house for a bit of fun. As luck would have it, a French hillbilly shows up and starts murdering everyone. Our heroine will not stand for it. Well, she'll stand for it while most of the family gets murdered, but THEN she will not stand for it.

The Good: True to it's title, High Tension keeps things tight and brutal. Constant suspense and plenty of gore. The heroine is also a notch above the usual horror fare, and looks tough if nothing else.
The Bad: The dubbing is fairly atrocious, but it's the unspeakably stupid / illogical / physically impossible twist near the end that brings this movie down to a 3. It does explain some of the more idioitic actions by our heroine, but it just obliterates whatever suspension of disbelief the audience may have been harboring.
The Ugly: There is a scene early on where we see the hillbilly using the head of a victim for illicit purposes. Don't think about it, just keeping going.

Points Pondered

• I didn't even know France HAD hillbillies. It just goes to show you that hillbilly murder is a growing epidemic.


• I'll bet you'll never guess that when it looks like the killer has died, he actually hasn't! I was SO surprised, I almost wet myself.


• The movie is half dubbed, and there's really no rhyme or reason for which lines get translated. It's as if they started, saw how idiotic it looked and just gave up.


• I want to punch the director SO HARD for screwing up this movie. He had a perfectly servicable horror film, and then he just flushed it down the toilet with his ending. Apparently Luc Besson helped him with it. Luc, I thought you were cool!