High Tension
Director: Alexandre Aja

Stars: Cecile De France, Maiween, Philippe Nahon
Review by Brian M. Sammons

If you’ve never seen this amazing French fright flick, the movie that seemed to start the craze of over the top violent, gory, and most importantly good French horror films, then you have been missing out. When you look at the utter crap that Hollywood keeps putting out as “horror” films and then you watch this, it will leave you scratching your head and probably a little angry if you’re a true horrorhead. However thankfully there are still people in the world that can make a decent fright film and thanks to this modern Global Marketplace, people anywhere can enjoy them easily. And trust me here folks, you will want to see this movie if you haven’t. But what if you’re already well versed in all things High Tension and already own the DVD, does this Blu-ray offer us anything new? Well let’s find out.

I’m not going to say too much about this movie, other than you should definitely see it. Yeah, this is one flick you should experience first hand with as little spoilage as possible. The quick and dirty of the story is this; two young girls go to a farm house to visit with one of the girl’s parents. A very sick man shows up, does some incredibly sick things and takes one of the girls away with him while the other one remains hidden. But that girl abandons her safety to follow the maniac and rescue her friend. Along the way the film really earns its name as the tension continues to get ratcheted up and up until the very end with a very great, if somewhat controversial conclusion. Oh, and I feel that I should say a word of warning that this movie is unflinching in it’s brutality and bloodletting, so if you are one of the more gentle fright fans out there, you might want to enter this film with caution.

As for this new BD release the good news is that it’s got all the extras from the previous DVD edition and there’s quite a few there from commentaries to behind the scenes and everything in between. The bad news is that it adds nothing new to the edition. While that is a missed opportunity, the most important thing is that the film looks and sounds great in high def. So if you already have this movie on DVD, you will have to decide if having a better picture to look at is worth the reinvestment to upgrade. If you don’t already have this movie in your library, then shame on you, but moreover this is easily the version to get.

Lionsgate will be releasing this Blu-ray as part of their big push for Halloween this year on October 5th. I highly recommend you getting it so you can experience some High Tension for yourself.

About Brian M. Sammons

Brian M. Sammons has penned stories that have appeared in the anthologies: Arkham Tales, Horrors Beyond, Monstrous, Dead but Dreaming 2, Horror for the Holidays, Deepest, Darkest Eden and others. He has edited the books; Cthulhu Unbound 3, Undead & Unbound, Eldritch Chrome, Edge of Sundown, Steampunk Cthulhu, Dark Rites of Cthulhu, Atomic Age Cthulhu, World War Cthulhu and Flesh Like Smoke. He is also the managing editor of Dark Regions Press’ Weird Fiction line. For more about this guy that neighbors describe as “such a nice, quiet man” you can check out his infrequently updated webpage here: http://brian_sammons.webs.com/ and follow him on Twitter @BrianMSammons.

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