High Tension is one of those New French Extreme movies that everyone was talking about for a minute and then they weren’t. “Well of course not, Kev, because they’re not ‘new’ anymore!” Oh baby, nobody cares. Damien Hirst is still referred to as one of the Young British Artists, and he’s 60.
First off, the main character wears a great big ring on her thumb and it’s pretty much all you can notice for the first few minutes because it seems to display prominently in every shot. Or maybe it just seems that way to me because it’s a cool ring, or because I used to have a friend that theorized “You can tell if a woman likes a lot of sex if she wears a lot of rings, and if she wears one on her thumb it’s guaranteed.” This friend, strangely enough, was single for almost the entire time I knew him. Not exactly an expert. But it’s true… women who wear rings like sex. Women who DON’T wear rings like sex. I like sex. Everyone likes sex. Sex is awesome!
Speaking of sex, we see our bogeyman pretty early on. He’s the one in a rusty delivery truck fucking a severed head. Then he tosses it out the window. Hashtag Litterbug. Alright so this is the movie we’re in for, 7 minutes and 20 seconds in I am already hoping nobody walks behind me while I’m watching this on my tablet at work.
Thumbring is accompanying her friend to stay at her parents’ house. Where is it? Out in the forest of course.
Fucking forests.
They get to the house late, share some girl talk about boy trouble, then Thumbring wastes little time! Goes up to the guest room and starts masturbating. Maybe my friend was right about the thumb rings? I mean I’ve stayed at a few friends’ parents’ homes, not once was I in a hurry to go burp a worm in the guest room. While Thumbring is upstairs double-clicking, the deliveryman comes for a late-night visit to get some head.
The deliveryman stalks around the house, with his onesie and his bad haircut, and bloodies up the joint with the insides of its occupants. No reason, he’s just a sweaty goofball who enjoys aarvarking severed heads and some late-night home invasion. Why? Because there’s nothing else to do when you live in the fucking forest!
“So bored, what am I going to do today?” “Have you considered killing and fucking stuff?” “Hm. Seems as good as anything I guess.”
Mister Sweaty kills a bunch of people then abducts the daughter in his weird little truck. Now it’s a rescue-survival effort. That is unless Thumbring wants to go back upstairs and enjoy that sexy sexy guest room. No? Okay well then get your shit together and go get ’em!
Fun movie… I mean if this messed up splash-pad of blood is your sort of fun.