15 scariest summer horror movies of all-time
By Wesley Lara
4. High Tension(2003)
Directed by Alexandre Aja
Okay, it’s true. I’m a huge Alexandre Aja shill. Lock me up and throw away the keys. But honestly, I can’t help it.
Aja is a director whose work I’ve admired for well over 15 years at this point and he has indeed created some of the most visceral and intense horror movies to come out in this millennia. Aja is a director that takes the rules of the French Extremism movement and uses them to his full advantage and I love talking about him whenever I can. It’s also not my fault that most of his movies take place in either late spring or summer, as is the case with High Tension.
The infamous twisty horror-thriller that divided audiences over its depiction of violence and the notorious end twist that still baffles me to this day is a film I would most definitely categorize as a summer movie, taking place over the course of a hot night and bleeding over into the next day in the process. When two college students stay together at one of their parent’s place, their fun ends with a knock on the door that reveals an insane trucker bent on murdering everyone in sight.
The otherwise peaceful farmhouse becomes a playground of death and despair as the family begins to bite the dust one by one, leaving the two girls to fend off the invading madman. A trip to your best friend’s house should not inspire this level of chaos, but that’s the situation we see in High Tension.
Though the classification of this being a summer movie is a little murky, the spirit of staying over at a friend’s house for the night is flipped on its ugly head, so I would say that counts as a horror movie aiming to change your perception of sleepovers forever.