Want to see something really scary? The First Purge director recommends French horror film High Tension

Just-released science fiction-horror film The First Purge is currently scaring cinemagoers and scaring up healthy figures at the box office. Starring Y’Lan Noel, Lex Scott Davis, Joivan Wade, Rotimi Paul, and Marisa Tomei, this prequel concerns the initial, experimental version of the Purge — a 12-hour period of government-sanctioned lawlessness — which takes place on Staten Island. But what is the favorite horror film of the movie’s director, Gerard McMurray (Burning Sands)? The answer is 2003’s High Tension, filmmaker Alexandre Aja’s tale of two friends whose weekend away in the country does not go as planned.

“It was just so raw and edgy,” says McMurray. “I feel like the French films, they really push it, when Americans really kind of pull back. That film is so raw and the tension — [I] was like, ‘This is really a messed-up movie in a real way!’ That film really spoke to me because it was just so real. I’ve seen so many horrors and that’s one of the ones that scared the s— out of me.”

Watch the trailer for High Tension above and one for The First Purge, below.

The First Purge is in theaters now.