I get Haute

Yay, Halloween season. Starting today, I'll be taking advantage of the impending holiday (does Halloween count as a holiday?) by covering stuff that I obsess about as much as excitable black women but rarely mention here: horror movies.

First up is Haute Tension, a French import that's so severely flawed that to love it is to revel in its idiocy. Kinda. The template is slasher-lite, with one hulking killer whose whereabouts the audience almost always is aware of, and a relatively small sample of potential prey. The basic storyline goes something like: two college-aged girls, Marie (Cécile De France) and Alex (Maïwenn), take a trip to relax and study at the country house of Alex's parents (supposedly in France but actually filmed in Bucharest). A stocky guy in a truck arrives and fillets the family, kidnaps Alex and bestows a Ripley-esque determination on Marie to help her friend out of this nightmare.

With a plot we've seen so much, it'd be too boring for nightmares, Haute Tension would be insufferable if it weren't so up front about its reference points. Indeed, co-writers Alexandre Aja (also the director) and Gregory Levasseur (also the artistic director) spend a lot of their DVD commentary explaining what came from where. Just like the 2003 remake of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre was finally an unpretentious entry in a long line of rip-offs of Tobe Hooper's classic (it finally was willing to call itself a spade), Haute Tension is unpretentious in its willingness to use derivation as an aesthetic. And really, if you can't say something new, at least be flashy about your sources of inspiration. Haute Tension is a cinematic equivalent of a DJ mix, chugging along via the ideas of others and yet, remaining wholly singular.

Here are some side-by-side comparisons of Haute Tension elements and their reference points. Some of these, I observed on my own, but a lot are revealed in the aforementioned commentary. Being sort of a film dilettante, I'm sure that there are tons of references I didn't pick up on. Also, in addition to these obvious ones, the movie is stacked with references in pacing and presentation (Dressed To Kill and Friday the 13th spring to mind) that couldn't be captured so easily.

I should add that I'm not yet ready to go into the major plot point that causes such ire and would be considered an absolute spoiler, BUT some of this may be considered spoiler-y. I think it's always best to see a movie knowing as little as possible about it, so if Haute Tension seems like it could be for you, please watch it instead of reading this. Also, the film is quite brutal so some of the images may be disturbing to pussies.

HT:

Total no-brainer: the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre:

HT:

A murder that takes place with the killer standing on the hood of the car, attacking who's inside, also happened in 1980's Maniac:

HT:

There's also an extended sequence in High Tension that's ripped right out of Maniac, which involves Marie being stalked in a public bathroom. As Marie waits in a stall, you can see the name "Margaret" written on the door. Check what's on the wall in Maniac's analogous scene:

HT:

Hero: Where are my bullets to kill you with? Villain: I've got 'em bitch.

This bit was ganked almost entirely from 1986's Hitcher:

Except Rutger Hauer's character actually gives C. Thomas Howell the bullets back, because you can't do cat-and-mouse with a broken cat.

HT:

These birds are reminiscent of those in 1985's A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge. Sadly, these do not go batshit like their predecessors:

HT's killer, by the end of the film, is made-up to look like Dune's festering Baron Harkonnen:

And finally, one of the murders references the best part of Dario Argento's otherwise boring Tenebre (1982). This one's really grisly (it involves dismemberment), so if you want to view it, you're gonna have to click.

HT's interpretation . . .

. . . of Tenebre's original

Not only is Haute Tension in love with other movies, though -- it's in love with itself. There's a real sense of vanity in its indulgence, and I think, that's with good reason. It's kind of beautiful a lot of the time:

And now's the time for unequivocal spoilers. Put down this blog. Really, bitch.

The reveal that Marie is the killer and that there was no hulking man figure in real life is indeed absurd (and it's absurdity from the mind of uncredited producer Luc Besson, who suggested the final reel be devoted to this reveal, according to Aja on the DVD). It destroys everything the movie presents in its first 80 minutes and smacks you with a sense of pointlessness. Buzz @ CampBlood does a great job of breaking down his outrage at the "twist" here.

The twist is a sign of post-Sixth Sense modern convention, which would be lame if it didn't go the extra mile and make Haute Tension totally absurd. Because of the absolute absurdity that is making Marie the killer (lesbian killer, no less, as she did it all for love!), Haute Tension eschews its artiness and puts itself right on the level of the low-budget/morality grindhouse movies it loves so much. And for this, I don't excuse the reveal so much as I embrace and love it.

Most of HT's reference points come from the '70s and early '80s, idyllic days before political correctness hijacked expression. HT balks at what we in 2005 might call good taste, as it allows for a dog and a child to be killed and doesn't even try to hide the link between Marie's homosexual tendencies and her homicidal ones (she masturbates at the beginning of the second reel, just as the killer -- more or less her id -- is showing up at the country house to wreak havoc). I mean, as far as the taste of homophobia goes, this really says everything:

And beyond the unsavory psychosexual implications, the twist is cheap and an example of poor storytelling. Of course it is. It lets you smell the sawdust on the floor, or maybe the bleach wafting over from the theater next door. I wish I could remember where, but I saw someone compare HT's ending to a game of three-card monty. Yep, just like they used to play on 42nd St., right outside the grindhouses. It's a swindle, no doubt, but it feels right. Maybe after reveling in the depravity, we deserve it.

Comments

[gail]

what's not to love about lesbian rampages? i'm surprised you didn't mention that we watched part of waiting to exhale afterward, which i found equally frightening. i have to go write epithets on my bottle of hot sauce now.

[reubix]

i lov eyou

[Charlie]

Nice discussion. I felt much the same way you did about the big, fat, dumb reveal, but I also appreciate how you locate the source material for this film--that's really brilliant. Your blog is officially one of my favorite places to visit.

Here's my response to Haute Tension: http://kinemapoetics.blogspot.com/2005/06/you-look-tense.html

[dooku]

Rich,

What do you use to get the screencaps? TiVo? It's a great tool, whatever it is.

[dooku]

And it appears you are threading needles just fine.

[Nikki]

I didn't see this movie but it sounds really familiar. Did anybody read Intensity by Dean Koontz. Thsi movie sounds just like it aside from the ending. His book was all about a girl who goes to stay with her friend and their family in the California countryside. They are all murdered. The girl hides under the bed. The killer doesn't kill her and she tries to kill him to avenge the murder of her friend. This sounds like maybe the first fifty pages of that book. Anybody? Anybody?

[Genevieve]

I think I'm going to have to miss this movie. But that Cécile De France chick is HOT! If she's in anything GOOD I might just have to rent it :)

[Rich]

Nikki -- I haven't read Intensity, but over on the IMDb boards, there was a discussion about the parallels between it and HT. Apparently, there are a lot of similarities. As far as I know, though, Aja and Levasseur have yet to own up to stealing from it.

[Eric]

Yay for der grindenhuis! I still can't believe I missed this one when it was out last spring. Maybe because it was playing at (again) the Landmark boutique instead of the scuzzbucket it should've ideally played.

[Brian]

I was just about to post about the Dean Koontz "Intensity" connection. I can't believe he wasn't credited or hasn't brought about some kind of legal action because seriously? The first oh, 90% of this movie is lifted entirely from "Intensity". Everything up until and including the gas station scene, is almost exactly what happens in the book with a few VERY inconsequential differences, namely Napa Valley substituting for the French countryside and the fact that the abducted friend is killed pretty early on. The ending is pretty much the only thing that is changed; the book has a much more conventional one.

That said, I enjoyed Haute Tension somewhat due to the brainless slasher fun and the beautiful scenery, but I have to say I agree with your contempt for the ridiculous ending. I actually think the "twist" wouldn't have been so bad if they had handled it correctly and not taken Luc Besson's advice. This is the kind of revelation that needs to hit you at the tail end of the film.

[Laura Varlas]

on the queer psychos tip--so when are you going to post on cruising? or is to boring to mention?