Thursday 1 December 2011

We Take The High Lane, The French Take The Low Lane



With nasty movies like Inside, Frontiers and Switchblade Romance leading the way it would seem the French have got their mojo together and started producing quality horror films. Worth checking out is Vertige, or High Lane in it's translated English language form, which is a cross between Deliverance and Cliffhanger. You know the drill...group of kids go hiking and encounter an axe wielding redneck. Death soon follows.

It's well shot, has an in-your-face realism which makes things more intense, there's some character conflict withing the group which spices things up and there's lashings of blood to keep gore hounds fixated. Also, like Neil Marshall's The Descent, there's a great deal of suspense wrung from the perils of mountaineering as well as the bloodthirsty nutter on the loose. It's nothing original but it is tense, raw and gripping.