Written and directed by Ti West
Starring Mia Goth, Jenna Ortega, Kid Cudi and Brittany Snow
Rated R for strong bloody violence and gore, strong sexual content, graphic nudity, drug use, and language
Runtime: 1 hour 45 minutes
In theaters March 18

by Ryan Silberstein, Managing Editor, Red Herring

It’s 1979, and a group of young people head into rural Texas–apparently not discouraged by Tobe Hooper’s The Texas Chain Saw Massacre–what could go wrong? Oh, and they are secretly going to make an adult movie titled Farmers’ Daughters in the boarding house they’ve rented on the farm that belongs to an older man (Stephen Ure) and his wife (Goth). Again, what could go wrong?  Of course, they don’t know they are in a horror movie. This isn’t my usual genre, and since we have so many horror heads and gorehounds in the MovieJawn ranks, I typically let the experts write the reviews. But I am glad I get to write about X, because it’s a fantastic slasher with a big heart in the center of it.

I’ve only seen one other work by Ti West (The House of the Devil), but this is not as much of a slow burn. Of course, there’s some setup, giving us a good sense of the characters on the way to the farm and through the first day of shooting their porno. Burlesque dancers Bobby-Lynne (Snow) and Maxine (also Goth) star in the film with male talent Jackson Hole (Kid Cudi). Maxine’s boyfriend Wayne (Martin Henderson) is also the producer of Farmers’ Daughters, and the talent, along with director RJ (Owen Campbell) and his girlfriend Lorraine (Ortega) as the sound department, all hop in a van and head out from Houston to a remote farm for their project. The property owner, Harold, doesn’t seem to remember the rental agreement, and the farmhouse seems to be frozen in time, giving a foreboding sense to the younger people. 

The 1979 setting is important for a few reasons beyond helping the characters seem isolated. Debbie Does Dallas, released the year before and namechecked here, was as close to mainstream as adult movies would ever get, yet Ronald Reagan would be elected president the following fall. In the same way that Let’s Scare Jessica To Death embraces a melancholy end of the 1960s, X feels like Ti West looking back on the 1970s with similar sadness as he reflects back on the exploitation, horror, and pornographic films of the era. An evangelical preacher is seen on television throughout X, portending the backlash to come. West is certainly employing a rose-colored tint to independent adult filmmaking, with everything consensual and cocaine used as a confidence boost rather than a coercion device. Both Maxine and Bobby-Lynne are enthusiastic participants. Both are excited about the potential cash, and Maxine is especially convinced she is destined for fame. While Mia Goth plays double duty as both Maxine and Howard’s wife Pearl, Brittany Snow’s performance wholly embraces this nostalgic take on what a porn actress from the late 1970s should feel like, reminiscent of Heather Graham in Boogie Nights. Snow, along with the other actors, add to the setting’s sense of verisimilitude for 1979 Texas, despite being shot recently in New Zealand. 

The mood, use of setting, gore, and the script are all working in harmony together to make the whole of X greater than the sum of its parts. From the early scenes introducing the main characters, West nods to many tropes of the genre without needing to check them off. The van stops at a rundown general store for gas and snacks, but no doomsayer directly warns them–except for the aforementioned televangelist. The score and choice of shot give a sense of dread throughout, reminding the audience exactly what kind of movie this is before the first splatter of blood. There’s also some fun misdirection leading up to some of the late act reveals. While there are minimal jump scares, once the blood starts flowing, the particular mode and pacing of the kills is calibrated for variety, and X never feels like we are just waiting for the young pretty people to die. 

For those who inherently love a fun slasher, this will deliver. However, X aims higher. But in order to discuss that, we need to get into spoilers about the killer’s identity. It’s not a mystery in the movie itself, but it is a surprise when it happens. Ti West makes a lot of interesting choices with the plot and themes of X, and I am looking forward to seeing it again to unpack even more of them. 

Spoilers after this point!

One thing that makes X so excellent is that it is a love story between Howard and his wife, Pearl. The young hot people aren’t getting murdered because they are living a deviant lifestyle, it is because Pearl is mourning her lost youth. Her jealousy stems from her sex drive and Howard’s health not allowing her to feel the pleasure she desires. There’s a deep kind of melancholy underlying the film, and Pearl’s anger at ‘flaunted youth’ makes her a sympathetic killer in some ways. As we get further into X, we get to see more of Howard and Pearl together and the long-lasting romance between them, and most relevant to the other characters, the physical love between them. Much of this comes through both Stephen Ure and Mia Goth. While the makeup work is excellent, what sells the age of Howard and Pearl is the way they move. Their slow shuffling walk, the facial expressions that show they aren’t thinking quite as quickly as they used to and the sense of longing in their tone of voice is all so impressive that I knew I needed to stay through the credits to see if they were older actors or younger performers under makeup.

West gets a lot of mileage out of the horrors of old age, making audiences (as well as the younger characters) uncomfortable with judicious use of music and makeup. The soft touch of a wrinkled, bony hand, an octogenarian expressing secure desire, and more are all played expertly in order to drive up maximum discomfort from something completely natural and human. The inherent juxtaposition, playing the cultural bias against the eldery into horror is both clever and effective, making X a must-watch for fans of the genre.