In the horror community, there’s a reverence for movies like The Texax Chainsaw Massacre of the 1970s. Brutal, visceral depictions that push the boundaries of the slasher film, and the horror genre in general. It’s extremely rare that someone will come along and do something fresh and new in a slasher movie: Scream and The Cabin in the Woods were the best of the bunch, because their films contain the entire history of the slasher horror movie genre within their brilliant screenplays. Ti West’s X can be considered among those two amazing films for the exact same reason; Ti West probably grew up on those 70s/80s slashers, and all his love for the genre is on full display with this 90 minute dark joke in movie form.
X is set in 1979 in Houston Texas. Wayne Gilroy (Martin Henderson) wants to film a “classy” porno to make some of that home video money. He brings along his cast and crew with him: Strippers/porn stars Bobby-Lynne (Brittany Snow), Jackson Hole (Scott Mescudi aka Kid Cudi), and Maxine Minx (Mia Goth), also Wayne’s girlfriend, as well as cameraman RJ (Owen Campbell) and boom mike operator Lorraine (Jenna Ortega). They arrive at an old school Texas farm, owned by the very elderly Howard (Stephen Ure) and Pearl (also Goth), who uneasily, um, welcome them onto the property for the weekend shoot.
When people claim to put a “spin” on a type of movie, they usually have one wrinkle they bring to the table and that’s about it. Not Ti West though; he uses the decades of experience to really keep the audience engaged with X. West starts with sexuality: usually the prude in the group, probably a woman in 70s/80s movies, is seen as the pure innocent final girl, especially in Texas with all the Christian iconography all over the place. Not so in X: anyone who’s prudish is actively mocked. This twist helps ground character motivations in the movie: the repressed/prudish have internalized their fear, usually causing them to lash out, sometimes violently, which years of studies have shown us totally happens. West’s camera helps frame the scare setups brilliantly as well; he opens with a zoom out that sets the tone immediately. Over the course of the film, West uses great angles to frame terror shots (like a woman slowly swimming the water while other people slowly track her movements) or uses parallel framing cutting (where one character is doing something sweet but creepy, and another is doing something we’ve seen in movies before, but it’s vile cheap stuff). And when things get ugly? West shows the kills as they’re meant to be viewed: some are twisted and brutally ugly, some are fast and bloody, and some are knowingly funny, as all slashers at some point are at least a little silly with their deaths. But the best twist of all? Howard and Pearl. We’ve seen versions of Howard and Pearl in other films, but usually they’re operating behind the scenes, dictating the action, hamming it up. In X the elderly married couple are active participants, but don’t expect hellfire and brimstone preaching from them. The couple are unlike any slasher characters I’ve seen in a movie before; they’re frail, and very human, with a pretty complex character setup for this type of movie. So when the story hits the climax, we’re filled with a host of complicated feelings, a testament to Goth, Ure, and Ti West’s collaboration on something fresh and new through something old and tired.
X also isn’t some cheap tits and asses horror flick like so many that came before it either. The movie has a deep understanding of its setting that lurks behind the whole story. The movie opens with a glimmering oil facility in Houston and our porno gang, all excited to be going for their own version of that oil facility. You might all know this as The American Dream. But for all their youth and hopeful spirit, Howard and Pearl’s farm is the part of that dream that the world doesn’t see. It’s this decaying place that hides away all those youthful dreamers that never made it, keeping them pent up and pushed to the outskirts of society because they’re “undesirable” now, like a cruel joke. On top of that, millennia of history show us that the young and the old always struggle to understand one another. Mia Goth is playing Maxine and Pearl for a reason; Maxine believes she’s nothing like Pearl because what Pearl looks like puts a veil over Maxine (and basicially all of the porno shoot gang) who’s blinded by her own youth and ambition to any knowledge Pearl can impart upon her. Conversely, Pearl and Howard are now so jaded and frustrated they innately don’t trust these youngsters on their property, blinded by the empty promises of a life unfulfilled. Ti West plays these themes with all the emotional beats they can conjure: sometimes X is heartbreaking, sometimes it’s sinister, and sometimes it’s darkly, amazingly funny. But it’s always fascinating, and will probably stay with you long after it ends.
You’ll laugh. You’ll cry. You’ll scream. You’ll squirm. You’ll cheer. But instead of doing this ironically with most of the 70s/80s slasher movies, Ti West’s X will earn all of those reactions because of how brilliant it is. Ti West’s level if reverence, self-awareness, and talent in front of and behind the camera(s) makes X a movie to remember. And for you music fans, we get a little Pitch Perfect a cappella performance from Brittany Snow and Kid Cudi. Nice!