High Lane, Vertige (2009)
Directed by: Abel Ferry
Written by: Johanne Bernard, Louis-Paul Desanges
Starring: Fanny Valette, Johan Libereau, Raphael Lenglet
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pV9yYSu6qA4[/youtube]
High Lane (Vertige) (2009)
(15) Running Time: 90 minutes
Reviewed by: Matt Wavish, official HCF critic
The French, they have made some great horrors over the past few years, Inside, Martys, Frontiers, Mutants to name but a few, and then they make disastrous films like Humains. High Lane fits nicely between the too, in other words this is a very average film. In fact, it is so average it becomes quite non-existent in places and to be perfectly honest, there is not all that much to talk about here but I will certainly do my best to give you an idea of what its all about.
The films focuses on five friends Chloe (Valette), Loic (Libereau), Guillame (Lenglet), Fred and Karine, they are hiking through some mountains when one of them decides to lead them off the trail and head up really high to a off the map trail which is not exactly safe. As a bit of a plot twist, one of the group has vertigo, of all things, and this leadds to some forced but un-natural tension a bit later on. Now, the early scenes of the landscape are impressive, as are some of the climbing scenes with great use of camera to add to the effect of them being up high. I’m not really one for heights and some of the scenes made me feel a bit giddy, so job well done. As with all climbing films, the odd moment of someone nearly falling is used and once they get to the top, a brillant but over-used scene awaits. A rope bridge joins two very tall mountain peaks, and I can tell you now, there is no chance you’d get me on that, but sadly it’s the only way for the friends to go because Mr Clever has taken them the wrong way! Tension really does mount as they slowly make their way across and, naturally, things go wrong once Vertigo boy starts to panic.
The acting on offer here is good enough, and you get the sense of real fear at times and close bonds, but Vertigo boy (I’m sorry but I forget their names) is possibly the worst actor here, so his moments of panic do not have the required effect. Non-the-less we crack on and learn that there is some tension between Vertigo boy and the boyfriend of one of the girls, I guess you couldcall it jealousy and it leads to some harsh plot twists a bit further in. It will soon dawn on you that the film is of two halves, the first half a rather clever and at times quite brilliant climbing expedition that doesn’t go according to plan, with some pretty good scenes, good use of the scenary and at times, nail biting tension.
Now, the second half we enter a sort of Hills Have Eyes crossed with Hostel territory as one of the friends finds himself the victim of a bear trap. They become hunted and what could have been a fitting end to the film falls incredibly flat as the killer is irritating (he screams a lot) and the violence seems more intent of playing it safe. We either cut away or the camera is jittering about like its just landed in a hornets nest, so we can barely see whats going on anyway. Certain choices have to be made, one of them actually quite shocking, but this is far from the classic it could have been. There are not many French horrors that land in the incredibly average genre, but High Lane does, a sadly missed oppurtunity that would have been much better had the director had the guts to push some boundaries like a lot of French director’s like to do.
Rating: 
[pt-filmtitle]High Lane[/pt-filmtitle]
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