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Movies | ‘X’ Review: Trash, Art and the Movies
‘X’ Review: Trash, Art and the Movies
Published March 17, 2022 Updated March 24, 2022
X NYT Critic's Pick Directed by Ti West Horror R 1h 45m
Ti West’s latest is a slasher film about the making of a porno film, but the result might not be what you expect.
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“X” is a clever and exuberant throwback to a less innocent time, when movies could be naughty, disreputable and idiosyncratic. Two kinds of movie in particular: the dirty kind and the scary kind. Set in 1979, before the internet made pornography ubiquitous and before anyone was pontificating about “elevated horror,” this sly and nasty picture insists that the flesh and blood of down-and-dirty entertainment is, literally, flesh and blood.
Not that the director, Ti West, is simply replicating the cheap, tawdry thrills of the olden days. West, whose earlier features include “The House of the Devil” and “The Sacrament,” is both a canny craftsman and a genre intellectual. In the midst of the sex and slaughter, he conducts an advanced seminar on visual pleasure and narrative cinema.
And also a brief course in film history, with particular attention to “The Texas Chain Saw Massacre” and shout-outs to “Psycho” and “Debbie Does Dallas.” That X-rated landmark (later adapted into an Off Broadway musical ) provides inspiration for the six Texans who show up at a decrepit farmstead to shoot a hard-core oeuvre called “The Farmer’s Daughters.” The actual farmer, an apparently childless geezer named Howard (Stephen Ure), has rented them a bunkhouse on his property. He and his wife live in the creaky, creepy main house.
The cast and crew consists of three performers — two women and a man, the classic heterosexual porn ratio — a director, a technician and a swaggering entrepreneur who claims the title of executive producer. This guy, Wayne (Martin Henderson), is also romantically attached to one of the stars, Maxine (Mia Goth), who dreams of the Hollywood big time. Her veteran co-stars, Bobby-Lynne (Brittany Snow) and Jackson (Scott Mescudi, also known as the rapper Kid Cudi), are also a couple, as are RJ (Owen Campbell), the director, and Lorraine (Jenna Ortega), who handles the sound and is, at least for a while, the designated prude.
Since “X” is a slasher film, it’s not spoiling anything to note that most of these people will not make it out alive. An ax, a pitchfork and a shotgun are all in easy reach, and for good measure there’s an alligator in the pond. Howard and his wife, Pearl, give off sinister vibes, and West’s knack for zooming, cutting, manipulating point of view and layering sinister sounds creates an unmistakable anticipation of doom.
But the sequence of deaths, the motives for the mayhem and the identity of the survivor may not quite match your expectations. Most notably, the old circuitry connecting horror and female sexuality — canonically diagramed in Carol J. Clover’s 1992 study “Men, Women and Chain Saws” — has been rewired. By the time it’s all over, the film has moved out of period pastiche into interesting new territory, exposing a feminist dimension in the horror tradition that may have been there all along. (Since West is reportedly already at work on a prequel, further exploration may be in store.)
In the meantime, you can sample the familiar, trashy pleasures of sin and skin, with a piquant sprinkling of meta. This is a movie about moviemaking, after all, like “Argo” or “Day for Night” or “Singin’ in the Rain,” and as such it teases the viewer with knowing winks and easy-access insider references.
Many of these come at poor RJ’s expense. With his stringy hair, wispy beard and wet-noodle physique, he’s a film-nerd caricature. He wants to bring experimental techniques — “the way they do in France” — to “The Farmer’s Daughters,” and worries Wayne with his commitment to the avant-garde. Still, he’s not entirely a satirical scapegoat. His sensitivity about the kind of movie he’s actually making (especially once Lorraine sheds her disapproval) isn’t played for laughs. His toast “to independent cinema” is a punchline, but it could also be West’s motto.
When RJ argues against the importance of plot, he has a point, one West both upholds and challenges. Horror and hard-core both use narrative as a flimsy excuse to show the audience the action it really came to see. And while the sex in “X” is strictly R-rated, the movie isn’t shy about appealing to voyeurism. There’s nothing coy or arty about the bloodletting.
The twists of the story — the shifts in attention from Wayne and Maxine and their colleagues to Howard and Pearl — are hardly arbitrary. West, unlike his pornographers, has things to say as well as bodies to show. Most of all, he has an aesthetic that isn’t all about terror or titillation. “X” is full of dreamy, haunting overhead shots and moments of surprising tenderness.
One of these arrives in the middle, while everyone is still alive and wearing clothes, and Bobby-Lynne, accompanied by Jackson on guitar, breaks into a heartfelt rendition of Fleetwood Mac’s “Landslide.” (One thing that definitely sets “X” apart from its ’70s influences is a robust budget for musical clearances.) The song serves no narrative end, or any prurient or profound purpose. It’s an unexpected gift. So is “X.”
X Rated R. Not quite what the title promises, but still. Running time: 1 hour 45 minutes. In theaters.
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Written and Directed by
Ti West
Mia Goth Jenna Ortega Brittany Snow and Scott Mescudi
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In 1979, a group of young filmmakers set out to make an adult film in rural Texas, but when their reclusive, elderly hosts catch them in the act, the cast find themselves fighting for their lives.
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Halfway through Ti West ’s “X,” a ragtag gang of porno filmmakers, including high-minded director RJ ( Owen Campbell ) and his shy girlfriend/sound girl Lorraine ( Jenna Ortega ) face a challenge. Lorraine’s been watching their movie’s stars perform sex acts for the camera all day, and announces, to everyone’s surprise, that she’d like to give it a shot. An annoyed RJ tells Lorraine they’re too far into the story. Adding her in would change their movie’s whole direction.
“What about 'Psycho'?” Lorraine asks, reminding RJ that Hitchcock’s movie introduces a new set of protagonists halfway through. “Psycho” is horror, RJ says, and they’re not making a horror film. They’re making porn. Of course, our characters are about to learn they are part of a horror picture. They just happen to be living it, not making it.
This scene and its mounting meta-commentary describe "X"'s reason for being in a nutshell: it’s an icky good time that's primarily a love letter to the filmmaking process. Structural shifts and tonal sleight-of-hand are part of its self-referential approach. "X" is a clever formal experiment, but one that plays like a feature-length joke for horror fans and filmmakers rather than offering a distinct perspective. West conjures nasty fun with a genre enthusiast’s expertise and then doesn't offer much beyond that.
The grist for this gory, sexy mill comes in the form of would-be adult film empresario Wayne ( Martin Henderson ), his girlfriend Maxine ( Mia Goth ), burlesque dancer Bobby-Lynne ( Brittany Snow ), and Bobby-Lynne’s boyfriend/co-star Jackson (Scott “ Kid Cudi ” Mescudi), in addition to RJ and Lorraine. It’s 1979, and Wayne has booked the crew space on a farm outside Houston to shoot their movie “The Farmer’s Daughters,” which he expects will be a hit on the emerging home video market.
Wayne’s chosen location is a rickety, creepy cabin owned by Howard ( Stephen Ure ), an old coot who disapproves of Wayne and his crew. Howard’s invalid wife Pearl, whose impressive casting I won’t reveal, envies the group’s youth and virility, and is particularly drawn to the determined-but-insecure Maxine. Anyone picking up “The Texas Chain Saw Massacre” vibes or making note of RJ and Lorraine’s “Psycho” discussion can see where this is headed. Suffice it to say that as evening descends, the body count rises.
West delights in the atmosphere of his setting and the historical hallmarks of the lurid sandboxes he’s playing in. His knowledge and humor is evident in Maxine’s Linda Lovelace-inspired hair and makeup, the swampy, sweaty heat of the film’s coastal Texas locale, and Jackson’s baby-blue leisure suit and perfect afro.
The film crew’s “let’s-put-on-a-show” ethos highlights the plucky, hard-fought joys of low-budget filmmaking, recalling movies like “ Ed Wood ” or “Dolemite is My Name.” When the focus switches to out-and-out horror, the source of “X’s” enthusiasm and devotion also changes. Instead of the characters being energized by the ad-hoc creative process, it’s West himself who radiates excitement, nearly becoming an off-camera character as “X” gleefully picks off its filmmaker proxies one by one.
But “X” never goes deeper than these visceral pleasures. There are hints at an even weirder potential storyline, or themes about the commodification of youth and beauty. None of this goes beyond suggestion. Howard and Pearl particularly feel like missed opportunities, plopped into genre stereotypes and ignoring the economic and cultural undercurrents which helped make the Sawyer family of "Texas Chain Saw Massacre" and Norman Bates of "Psycho" so iconic.
“X” is all about having a good time and relishing the hard work, dedication, and satisfaction of independent filmmaking, regardless of genre. That clear joy is admirable, but West’s ode to technical and artistic ingenuity undervalues the context that played a significant role in the success of the movies he so lovingly references. “X” is plenty of fun; it also feels like a trifle that could easily have been much more.
This review was filed from the 2022 SXSW Film Festival. The film opens on March 18th.
Abby Olcese is a film critic and writer based in Kansas City, where she is the film editor for The Pitch Magazine. Abby is a regular contributor to RogerEbert.com, Sojourners Magazine and Think Christian, where she writes about the intersection of popular culture and spirituality.
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