X (2022)

[5]

If you threw every horror movie since 1960 into a blender, there’s a chance it would come out looking like this offering from writer/director Ti West (Sacrament, House of the Devil). A group of young people rent a cabin from a really old couple in rural Texas. They don’t tell the owners that their plan is to shoot a porno movie on the estate, and when the old folks find out, the body count begins. There’s a little bit more to the characters of the old people, but that’s essentially X in a bottle.

I don’t quite know what to make of this movie. The first twenty minutes are so full of overt nods to The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, that it ruffled my feathers. Was Ti West trying to do his own TCM? I continued watching as the young people started shooting porn scene after porn scene (yawn), intercut with scenes of the old people being vaguely creepy looking out windows and combing their hair (yawn). Then the movie tries to get ‘meta’, talking about sex, horror — basically talking about itself. At one point a character even says out loud that the story might change partway through and be about something completely different than you imagine. They reference Psycho as an example.

There’s something of a twist in the middle of the movie. Problem is, it’s not enough of a twist to shake the plot up, or make things any more thrilling or mysterious. It’s just an extra layer of exploitation. West banks on audiences being grossed out by old people portrayed as sexual beings, and he milks that for all its worth. Is it scary? For me, not really. Is it funny? Maybe. I laughed out of discomfort a few times.

X flirts with being a Tarantino-style regurgitation of exploitive, cinematic mayhem, but it doesn’t go far enough. To leave a Tarantonio-sized mark, we need more sex, more gore, more energy. It also flirts with being meta, but it lets go of that pretty quickly. It hints at having something to say about sex and religion, sex and morality, repression and free-spiritedness. But it never quite coalesces, and at a certain point it stops trying and becomes a slightly tedious, repetitive sequence of kill scenes. In the end, I guess X is just another horror movie.

As much as I was personally underwhelmed, I think many horror fans will enjoy this movie. It delivers a fair number of jump scares and cringes, and it certainly ends on a strong note. The cast start out as stock characters, but everyone gets a chance to shine. Leading lady Mia Goth is very good, playing not one, but two characters — one of the young people and the old woman. Brittany Snow (Hairspray) is also memorable as a southern porn star in the making. With Jenna Ortega, Kid Cudi, Martin Henderson, Owen Campbell, and Stephen Ure.