"X" -- Movie Review

 

This week at the A24 Screening room, I streamed the new horror film by Ti West, “X”.

Synopsis

When a group of friends rent space to shoot an adult movie, what happens when the property owners find out what they’re up to?

Story

It’s 1979 in Houston, Texas.  Wayne (Martin Henderson), who fancies himself as something of an entrepreneur, decides he can make it big as a movie producer.  He engages his girlfriend Maxine (Mia Goth), a cocaine-addicted stripper, to join the cast of “The Farmer’s Daughters” – basically, a porn flick.  He rounds out the cast with Bobby-Lynne (Brittany Snow), one of the other dancers at this club along with her occasional boyfriend Jackson (Kid Cudi).  The crew includes R.J. (Owen Campbell), the camera operator and his girlfriend Lorraine (Jenna Ortega), who works the audio. 

All of them pile into Wayne’s van and head out to a remote rural area of the state; with great trepidation, they rent a cottage from a creepy elderly couple who run a boarding house.  The elderly couple are highly suspicious of this motley group, whom they assess to be a bunch of perverts – but when Wayne pays up a little extra for the rental, they quickly put their concerns aside.  Shortly thereafter, they begin shooting their movie on a shoestring budget; while some of them aspire to greater things that will result from this effort, others are merely having fun.  They try to shoot the film quickly so they can soon bid farewell to the old couple.

Surprising everyone, Lorraine announces that she’d like to shoot a scene in the movie, despite R.J.’s objections.  After she films her sex scene, R.J. is so humiliated that he decides to abandon his colleagues, taking the van and the equipment.  But before he can drive off the property, he’s stopped by the elderly wife, and that’s the end of R.J.  When the rest of the group attempt to go looking for him, that’s when the bodies start to pile up, one after another.  With this maniacal elderly couple on a killing spree, will any of the aspiring filmmakers be able to escape with their life? 

Review

If you’re looking for something new to add to your list of guilty pleasures, “X” is highly recommended.  Whether your laughs will be louder than your screams may depend on your sense of humor and tolerance for violence.  Either way, this one is a worthwhile watch.  Writer/Director Ti West does an outstanding job of putting a twist on the tried-and-true formula for the classic slasher film.  He doesn’t mock the genre so much as has fun with it and invites the audience to come along for the thrill ride – and what an enjoyable ride it is!  Just sit back and watch the cadavers fall while you munch some popcorn. 

What’s truly great about “X” is the fact that there really is no true protagonist for whom the viewer can root.  Although it is the elderly couple that are the killers, none of the aspiring "filmmakers" are especially endearing.  Pretty much everyone here deserves to die; it then becomes a question of who gets it next and how their end comes.  Who, if any, will survive?  That’s the guessing game you can play throughout the film, and one of the things that makes slasher movies like this so much fun.  Nearly every demise you anticipate will occur, but not necessarily when or how you might expect. 

The real kicker to this screening happened at the end:  there was a short (and clean) version of the adult film the group intended to make, “The Farmer’s Daughters”.  Its look and feel realistically emulates the way 1970’s porn, which only adds to the humor.  Thankfully, there’s no gore here.  Ti West plays it for laughs all the way (in case you were wondering how the finished version of the flick would turn out).  It’s quite a relief, too, because it gives viewers the opportunity to relax a bit after all the tension in “X”.  If you can find a theater where it’s playing (or a streaming service where it can be rented), it’s guaranteed to be an entertaining couple of hours.