HIGH TENSION

So High Tension (aka: Haute Tension in its native French) is about these two college girls who go to one of the girls' parent's home for a bit of a break. They arrive and the parents (and their young son) are all very nice and Marie (the one in the poster) is shown to her room. As everyone is falling asleep, a lumbering slob of a man drives up in his truck, breaks into the house, and starts killing everyone. Marie uses her wits and stealth to manuever around the house to try to call the cops and rescue her friend who is bound and gagged to her bed. From that point on, it becomes a cat & mouse game as the killer stalks Marie.

I will say this, the first hour of the movie is excellent. It's scary, it's gory, it's well shot and acted, and as the title implies, it's VERY tense. Lots of moments where Marie is hiding and the killer is just inches away without realizing it. Now I heard from some people who'd seen it before that the movie is great up until a point, and then it just gets ruined by a supposed "twist". Keeping that in mind, I watched the movie for clues as to what the crappy twist could be. I kinda figured it out during the first scene, then wasn't very surprised by the twist, and then got really angry. And I can't explain why without spoiling it, so don't read further unless you want to know. Otherwise, I'll just say that it was great until the twist and then I hated it.

SPOILERS
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So the entire movie we're watching Marie hide and run around, trying to evade the killer. At one point there's a car chase between the two and everything. And then it's revealed that SHE is the killer! Yep, Marie killed the family all along and all the cat & mouse stuff was just her mind playing tricks....her "good" side battling her "bad" side. While this sort of plot device has been done before (a la Fight Club), there's usually a good explanation for it. Here, it just happens and you're supposed to fill in the blanks as to what really happened. You're supposed to sense that all the scenes with her by herself are just tricks her mind was playing on her, but if you really sit and think about it, it just doesn't work.
I talked with a friend of mine who enjoyed the movie and he felt that all the flip-flopping was justified. So, who knows. I just know personally I felt cheated. HOWEVER, I liked everything else about the movie so I'd totally see what this director does next, but this one just angered me.