Psycho killer qu'est que c'est (Switchblade Romance (DVD))

Name: hogsflesh

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Product:	Switchblade Romance (DVD)
Date:	21.02.05 (160 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Good suspense, good gore,, scary killer, pretty French, girls being menaced

Disadvantages: Terrible ending., Really terrible ending., Bad title, as well.

Horror films are popular at the moment. This, to my mind, is a good thing. I like horror films. This one's a slasher movie from France, of all places. If there's one European country that's never had an indigenous horror movie tradition, it's France. (Of all the truly great horror movies, only one, Les Yeux Sans Visage by Georges Franju, is French.) But the director, Alexandre Aja, clearly knows his stuff, and he's cranked out what is *almost* a great little film.

Two pretty students, Marie and Alex, go to visit Alex's parents in their remote country house in order to revise for some exams. Everything seems fairly normal, with easy going parents, adorable little brother and cuddly dog (called Hendrix - what a fantastic name for a dog!). Marie seems to have vague lesbian desires for her friend (within ten minutes of their arrival at the house she's spied on Alex in the shower and had a gratuitous masturbation scene). Were this not a horror film, we might expect a moving and restrained drama about unrequited sapphic passion. Unfortunately, if a little predictably, there's a terrifying serial killer in the neighbourhood. (He's an impressively sleazy character - we first see him pleasuring himself with the severed head of a previous victim.) He arrives at the peaceful chateau like a bolt from the blue, and the last hour or so of the film is suspenseful and entertainingly harrowing as the girls try desperately to stay alive. Until we reach the last five minutes, at which point, sadly, the film blows it completely.

It's a terrible shame. Switchblade Romance is really well done, with the suspense perfectly judged, and the timing of the nasty bits absolutely spot-on. The conventions of the girls-in-peril-from-psycho genre are played around with intelligently, without the knowing smugness that made the Scream films a bit less good than they could have been. The killer is genuinely unsettling, a large, dirty middle-aged man who just happens to get off on killing young women - no hockey masks or other silly gimmicks. The victimised ladies are genuinely terrified and completely unprepared for their ordeal (one of them does get a bit kick-ass towards the end, but that almost always happens in horror movies). The film also has the guts to be properly nasty, with a particularly horrible throat-slitting at one point.

Which makes it all the more regrettable that it has what is possibly the worst ending to any film I've ever seen. Not only does it make no sense at all, it actively insults the audience's intelligence by trying to be really clever while at the same time disregarding logic, coherence and the vaguely realistic premise of the rest of the film. (It's also offensive for other reasons I can't really talk about without giving the whole thing away - to be honest, if there's one film that really deserves to have the ending spoiled, it's this one, but I'll restrain myself). I don't think I've ever seen a film that miscalculated this badly in its ending.

Like a lot of contemporary horror, it borrows extensively from older films. (I can't think of a modern American horror film - from Blair Witch to Cabin Fever, via out-and-out remakes like Texas Chainsaw or Ring - that isn't very obviously influenced by older horror movies. While it's nice to see someone paying homage to old favourites, surely the time's going to come when this isn't effective any more? Ah well, at least the proposed remake of The Wicker Man seems not to be happening.) The main influence here is John Carpenter's Halloween - the killer's boiler suit, for instance, or a particularly good bit where someone hiding in a closet is threatened by a man with a big knife. There's also a slight Last House on the Left vibe to it (none of the repulsive stuff from Last House, just a vague feeling). It also reminded me a bit of Funny Games (officially the most gruellingly unpleasant film ever made), although that isn't really a horror film, and I probably only thought that because they're both in French.

The acting is very good. Cecile de France as Marie is the most impressive, acting terrified better than almost anyone I've ever seen. Philippe Nahon is also very good as the killer, managing to be realistically human without once showing a single redeeming feature. The direction and photography are fine, and the editing (always a big concern in a film like this) more than adequate. It's just the story that lets it down. It's such a shame that a film that gets pretty much everything right falls at the final hurdle. There's some very good stuff here, but sadly all I'm going to remember is that punched-in-the-guts, do-they-take me-for-a-fool, who-the-hell-do-these-Frenchies-think-they-are-any way feeling that accompanied the last few minutes. It's not often a film messes up badly enough that I actually start resenting everyone involved. This one manages it with considerable aplomb.


I'm puzzled as to why it's called Switchbade Romance - the film's original title was Haute Tension (High Tension). This is a far more appropriate title, as the film features neither switchblades nor romance. Perhaps the UK distributors thought that High Tension sounded too much like a straight-to-video thriller (perhaps starring Ray Liotta or someone very like him).

If you're a horror fan this might still be worth checking out. It does have some great stuff in it. If you can somehow divorce the rather splendid hour or so of well-done, suspenseful women-in-peril horror from the wretched ending, then you might well enjoy this. Otherwise, keep well clear.

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