There’s always a potential issue with films (or stories in general, really) that rely on a significant revelation or plot twist, etc, which is, obviously, can you still watch the film when you know what said twist is. Psycho, for example. What must it have been like for its early readers/viewers who didn’t know about “Mother”? How does that foreknowledge change your viewing, your experience of the film? How does knowing the answer to a mystery affect a film? Cos obviously there must be cases where it doesn’t, otherwise no film would be rewatchable, a good film has to be good even when you know how it all ends… but it can’t work all the time, I suppose, and alas, I think tonight’s viewing was one of the latter cases.
I last saw High Tension whenever it came out here on DVD, so that must’ve been, what, 2004 or 2005, at which time I was aware that it had a plot twist (though not what it was) and that it had been quite contentious amongst fans and critics. Did it work? Did it not? I wasn’t sure then, but I do recall being less bothered by it than a lot of people seemed to have been; now, in 2025, on a second viewing, I’m rather more sure that it doesn’t. Rewatching the film, there are some aspects that I didn’t really pick up on first time round which now stood out a bit more cos I knew what was coming, and I don’t think that really helped it… it’s a reasonably simple slasher-type plot, but the twist involves the identity of the killer, who is not who we’re lead to believe, and with hindsight I really don’t think it works and I found it a lot harder to swallow. So yeah, a kind of disappointing revisit.
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