X

Ti West's X is an effective slow burn slasher in the style of the late 70s and early 80s slasher films.  Unlike some inferior recent imitators, like Halloween Kills, this is a movie that knows how to play up its unsettling setting, gives us some thrills and intentional laughs when necessary, and delivers some graphic scenes that are sure to make audience's squirm.  West understands that there's an art to making such a film, and he shows his expertise in every angle of this production.

As is to be expected, the set up and premise is simple enough, as we just need a group of soon-to-be victims who are trapped in an isolated location, so that some deranged madman or ghoul can stalk them one by one, until only one is left.  In a clever move, the film's "final survivor" is not easy to predict.  The fact that our heroes are a group of people out to shoot a porno means that there is no "innocent" character who is predetermined to survive the deadly night.  It's also set in 1979, to give it a closer feel to the films its emulating.  Our group includes aspiring director R.J. (Owen Campbell), who likes to refer to his porno as an "independent movie", and is determined to add as much art and integrity to his film (titled The Farmer's Daughters) as possible.  There's also his girlfriend, Lorraine (Jenny Ortega, appearing in her third horror film in 2022 so far.), lead actors Maxine (Mia Goth), Jackson Hole (Scott Mescudi), and Bobby-Lynne (Brittany Snow), and sleazy producer Wayne (Martin Henderson).  

The group have arranged to shoot their movie in secret around an isolated farmhouse that is occupied by the elderly Howard (Stephen Ure), and his wife Pearl (Mia Goth, in a dual role, and unrecognizable under heavy make up).  When they arrive, Howard is aggressively standoffish with the group, while Pearl is prone to wandering about, and seems to be oddly transfixed on Maxine.  Night falls, and the young heroes are drawn out of their guest home for one reason or another to be met with some kind of grisly end.  To his credit, West is having a lot of fun with the standard cliches of the stalker-killer genre.  As the motives behind the not-very-innocent elderly couple slowly start to come to light, it's truly disturbing in its simplicity.  This is more than just a movie where we wait for the next kill scene.  I found myself feeling quite tense, and drawn in by the twisted world the killers live in.

X is a straight-forward film, as it should be.  There are no subtleties, and no mistaking the kind of film West is making, or the audience he is going after.  But he shows a definite skill with his work behind the camera, and even occasionally with his dialogue, offering some witty meta humor, and brief moments of dark comedy.  We can sense his love for the genre when he stages some of the film's more suspenseful moments, such as when one of the potential victims finds themselves locked in a cellar.  As nasty as the movie can get, there is an undercurrent of glee that he seems to be inserting.  He's not only showing his skill at understanding what made the better entries of the genre work, he lets us in on the fun.

This is the rare throwback movie that works, because the filmmaker is not just showing he can do what worked before, but he puts his own unique spin on it.  He excels at moments of quiet tension (a scene involving a character in the water, unaware that a gator is nearby is highly effective), as well as the over the top gore that most in the audience will have come to see.  He even manages to get some good performances, with Goth's dual role obviously being the most impressive, and how she completely loses herself in the role of the psychotic Pearl.  And while it would be nice to get a bit more background concerning the murderous couple in the abandoned old farmhouse, what we do get is enough to make them disturbing and off-putting.

X is skillful and tremendous fun, and manages to create some genuine suspense out of a simple premise.  It's the kind of movie that will likely leave your mind not long after you've watched it, but while it plays out, it manages to hold a certain spell that few recent efforts to recreate this style of film can claim.

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