High Tension (**1/2)

This movie is excellent up until the last fifteen minutes or so. First, let's discuss what it does well. Derivative as it is, it does a good job of nailing the style and tone of those great, low budget 70's thriller-horror flicks like Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Duel. The movie is spectacularly intense for most of its running time, and really does live up to its title. Before it gets overly "clever," the story is very simplistic: a crazy trucker kills an entire family, and it's up to one woman to escape from the house and stop him. About that crazy trucker: he's given little MO other than just going around killing young girls' families and then kidnapping the girls, cutting off their heads, and making their decapitated heads give him a blow job. Sick, twisted, and definitely not the PG-13 ghost horror we've been seeing a lot of lately. So up till now, it's a bloody, scary good time. And then....SPOILER ALERT! The movie decides it doesn't want to be a simple, balls to the wall straight up horror flick, and thinks it needs to be about something. So what does it turn to? That's right! The ol' multiple personality twist at the end. Apparently, the crazy trucker is actually the woman he's terrorizing! What a load of crap. This movie was going for ***1/2 stars, and it's lucky to be getting **1/2. For the love of all that is good and pure, STOP with the multiple personality twist endings. We don't need a twist. Just give us some crazy-ass trucker, don't explain why he's so crazy, and just scare us. That's all we need.