31 DAYS OF HORROR 2024-Day 17: X (2022)

“Everybody likes sex. It’s a gas! We’re just not afraid to admit it. Queer…Straight… Black… White… It’s all disco. Y’know why? Because one day, we’re gonna be too old to fuck, and life’s too short if you ask me. The fact of the truth of the matter is… We turn folks on. And that scares ‘em."

Texas, 1979: During the pre-AIDS era of "porno chic" and "free love," a crew of filmmakers make their way to rented lodgings on the farm of a decrepit old couple, there to shoot a pornographic film that they envision as putting them in the big time via exploiting the impending boom of such material on home video, where "perverts can watch porno at home, free of judgment." Over the course of 24 hours, ambitions are stoked, philosophies, expounded upon, "morality" is called into question, inhibitions are aggressively shed, insecurities are stripped as bare as the performers, long-unfulfilled lusts are expressed, pent-up frustrations are given vent, and from there things get dark and dire.

Talk about wearing your influences on your sleeve...

X is an unmistakable homage to Tobe Hooper's 1974 landmark of hicksploitation horror, THE TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE. In fact, it's almost damned near a remake, albeit minus the cannibalism angle and plus scenes of the production of a tenderloin flick that likely made the prudes at the MPAA squirm more than a little. The remote rural setting with little chance of intervention/help from the outside world, a van full of friends among whom there is a rift, and a final girl who endures twisted and unspeakable horrors during the final act are all familiar structural elements in a slow burn that maintains its leisurely pace, even during the mayhem-packed last act. 

I would have recapped the plot in more detail, but this is a film that benefits from being entered into with as little foreknowledge of its specifics as possible, though I will say that writer-director Ti West is obviously a fan of Hooper's slasher masterpiece. Some might even go so far as to say X is a virtual clone with only minor differences, but I enjoyed it quite a lot, despite its blatant near-doppelganger properties.

The atmosphere is a perfect bit of southern creepery straight out of the playbooks of TEXAS CHAINSAW, EATEN ALIVE, SOUTHERN COMFORT, and several others, only far better realized than most, accented with some nasty, visceral violence and gore, all brought to lurid life by a game cast. Headed by Mia Goth as Maxine, an ambitious denizen of the post-Sexual Revolution '70's who is hell-bent on being a star whose name the whole world will know. She's completely believable in the part, and this is arguably her breakthrough role.

Maxine (Mia Goth) gives her all for a grab at the brass ring of stardom. 

I regret missing this during its theatrical release, but it had the misfortune of coming out during the ass-end of the COVID lockdown, during which time I largely and wisely avoided movie theaters. By the time I finally got to it, I was aware of exactly what kind of film it is, and, as previously noted, it would have been even more enjoyable if I went in knowing nothing other than its setup involved a crew that goes to a rental house in the middle of Bumfuck, Nowhere to make an artsier-than-usual fuck flick. Trust me when I tell you to avoid all spoilers and just go in as cold as possible.

Followed by a prequel and a sequel.

Poster for the theatrical release.