Alexandre Aja is one of those filmmakers whose work I’ll always sit up and pay attention to. It’s because the man has consistently created horror movies that have scared, fascinated, and downright pissed me off as a human being. He’s provocative, in all the right ways.
So, with Alexandre Aja’s latest horror movie Never Let Go releasing in theaters this week, we thought we would take a look back at his five most haunting horror movie moments.
Double Entendre – High Tension (2003)
Mere minutes into Aja’s second feature film, we’re smacked in the head with a horrid act that will set the tone for things to come. With almost nothing about the plot being divulged yet, the camera pans over and into a field where a vehicle reminiscent of the creepy truck from Jeepers Creepers sits on a dirt road. We see the truck moving back and forth a little bit; best case scenario, there’s a metal head in there headbanging or something. Not exactly…
We’re quickly treated to one of the most haunting visions of our lifetime when we realize it’s a large man using a woman’s severed head (that he presumedly proactively removed himself) to give himself, well, head. We are forced to listen to him wrap up his dark deed and he unceremoniously tosses the head out of his driver’s side window as if it were a half-eaten burrito.
Look, I know this is a quick scene, and that “scary” typically requires something in the way of suspense. But a tone-setter like this at the very start of a film is extremely disconcerting. And to do it so nonchalantly. This was a warning shot. And it worked.
The Family Massacre – High Tension (2003)
It’s a bit of a struggle calling this a “scene” in itself, considering it takes up such a substantial amount of High Tension’s running time. Regardless, the first moment our killer strikes is the defining moment of the film. Even with the outlandish twist ending on the other side.
As our main character, Marie (Cecile de France), is having some headphone alone time in her bedroom, a large mystery man stomps up to the front door of the friend’s house she’s staying at. A house consisting of her, her friend Alex, and Alex’s mother, father, and younger brother. We are about to watch Alex’s entire family be hunted down and brutally murdered.
The killer shows up with a Michael Myers type brutality to him. But instead of a mask, there’s just a frightening human face and an everyday ballcap. When the dad answers the door he’s immediately struck in the head. The killer follows up by entering the home and inserting the dad’s head in between the rails on the upstairs steps. Before we have a chance to gather our bearings, the killer then violently shoves a large, wooden piece of furniture directly into the dad’s head. His head pops off in such a way that makes you want to ponder the violent physics of it all… if only there were time. The killer is already stalking his way upstairs towards the mother’s screams.
We switch POVs to Marie in her room and are forced to listen to the blood-curdling screams of the mother while the killer has his way with her from the other side of the home. It’s an effective tactic used by Aja that reminds you of Craven’s use of sound in The Last House on the Left. This is an Alexandre Aja production, however, and eventually….he’s going to make us watch.
A few moments later as Marie moves throughout the house looking for a phone to call the authorities, she finds herself trapped in a closet with slats in it (as tends to happen to horror movie characters). The mother, already injured, walks into the room and attempts to open the closet for her own reprieve, but she isn’t so lucky. We watch along with Marie as the killer slits her throat far more deeply than I’m comfortable with. He then butchers her in a way that calls to memory some of Art the Clown’s most heinous offenses, only without the dancing glee.
We again listen to all the ripping and tearing before we’re treated to the aftermath through Marie’s eyes. He not only guts her body but has completely severed the lower portion of her arm.
Despite all the dismemberment and screaming, the biggest gut punch of this massacre comes from a simple gunshot when the killer follows the young boy screaming for his mother into the corn fields. It’s a moment that leaves you hopeless. Damn, we’re not even going to let the kid escape? No. Not even the dog survives today. The killer finally retreats to his truck-o-death after kidnapping Alex, carving out a picture of her to take with him as well, and mercifully ending a scene that’s such a brutal display of violence it’ll have you checking the locks on your own doors.
The Bath Tub Scene – Mirrors (2008)
Amy Smart had quite a fun horror movie run in the late 90s and 2000s. She appeared in Campfire Tales, Strangeland, and The Butterfly Effect. She’s an actress who I’m always happy to see on the screen, and I admire her willingness to go anywhere with her roles. She’s been game for some wild scenes in her career that a lot of folks would have balked at (see: Crank, 2006). Though Mirrors itself for whatever reason didn’t carry the bite of Aja’s previous litany of horrors, her demise in the film is as gnarly as they come.
As Smart’s character is getting ready for a bath in front of a mirror in a movie about mirrors who kill people, the Final Destination vibe washes over us in a wave of terrible foreshadowing. As she moves on to her bathtub, her reflection remains in the mirror with sinister repose. Her reflection then begins to grab itself by the upper and lower jaw, ripping its mouth wide open.
And yes, we see every agonizing bit of the violent torture.
Amy Smart acts the hell out of an uncomfortable scene where one minute she’s chilling in a bathtub; the next, her entire face is split in half. Those of us with anxiety can relate. The sounds and the general physical unnaturalness of it all is searing on the senses. And it just….keeps….going. The effects team outdoes themselves in a scene that looks as practical as it does abhorrent. We watch as her head is ripped in half, just dangling there swollen for the world to see. Mercifully the scene eventually ends but not before Aja makes us watch the entire gruesome scene play out, up close, and to its bitter end.
Another Family Massacre – The Hills Have Eyes (2006)
There was something about mid-2000s horror that felt as if it wanted to reclaim some kind of edge, and there’s no doubt Aja did his part to enforce it. Apart from the Cannibal Holocaust’s of the world, this scene in the remake of Wes Craven’s The Hills Have Eyes is one of the meanest the genre offers.
A family has broken down in the middle of a desert that is controlled by a group of mutated cannibals who are the result of nuclear testing. The mutants might be sadistic monsters but they’re still able to apply a tactical approach to their crimes.
After kidnapping the dad (the great Ted Levine) and setting him on fire to divert the rest of the family’s attention, several of the mutants sexually assault and attack his youngest daughter back in the camper. There’s a small baby in its crib just a few feet away, Aja taunting us with the idea of what could happen next. He’s already let us know that pets aren’t safe.
It gets worse before it gets better. When the baby’s mother (and the person we were led to believe would be our final girl) shows up, she is also assaulted as the monsters hold a gun to her baby’s head. Her mother tries to intervene but is shot in the stomach before the mutant turns the gun on her as well and shoots her in the head unceremoniously. The movie stops to rub its boots in your face and lets you know that it is not going to show any mercy to anyone, whatsoever.
And then they run off with the baby…
The entire idea of whether or not something like this should go this far is debatable. But isn’t it also arguable that it is sometimes necessary for a movie to come along with no limits so that we feel less safety in the genre going forward? I feel like sometimes these types of shocking movies are necessary for the genre to keep audiences from getting too comfortable.
The Entirety of Crawl (2019)
With Aja’s previous filmography, he showed us that he could be as gory and depraved as they come. But with Crawl (and later with Oxygen) he showed us he could handle suspense and thrills all the same.
I originally intended to make sure a scene from Crawl made our list today, but with its refreshing one-hour and twenty-seven-minute run time, the entire movie is suspenseful. Once the gators show up, it’s pretty much all gators, all the time. And it’s awesome. Kaya Scodelario gives one of the most underrated final girl performances in modern horror for my money as her character tries to save her dad (Barry Pepper) from a group of alligators during a hurricane in Florida.
What starts as an isolated location horror movie, with them both trapped under the house, ends up in a full-fledged disaster horror movie as they branch into the town that’s also swamped by the creatures. Whether it’s the storm or the gators, Crawl had me on the edge of my seat for the entire brisk running time and proved Aja could conjure up fear out of the audience in more ways than one.
Whether it’s over the top gore-horror or suspense, or even horror-comedy (shout out to Piranha 3D and Horns), Alexandre Aja has proven he’s no one trick pony. I can’t wait to see what he’s capable of doing next. Lucky for us, it’s releasing this week with Halle Berry and Never Let Go on September 20th. Here’s hoping we can add another one to the list.
‘Never Let Go’
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