An adult film crew get more than they bargained for at the farm where they are making their film in X. Wayne Gilroy (Martin Henderson) is a sleazy entrepreneur in 1979 Texas, who is producing a pornographic film starring his girlfriend Maxine Minx (Mia Goth), as well as Bobby-Lynne (Brittany Snow) and Jackson Hole (Scott Mescudi), shot by aspiring filmmaker RJ Nichols (Owen Campbell) with the help of his girlfriend Lorraine (Jenna Ortega). The crew arrives to shoot at the farm of elderly couple Howard (Stephen Ure) and Pearl (Goth), the latter of whom acts strange, particularly after dark.
X is the latest film from writer/director Ti West (The House of the Devil, The Innkeepers), which is a throwback to the type of 1970s exploitation slasher films that would have played in the grindhouses back in the day. X has two very distinct halves, with the first half focusing on this group of amateur adult filmmakers making their film, with the second half becoming a gory horror film.
Ti West in no stranger to playing homage to 1970s films, with his 2009 breakthrough The House of the Devil having a similar retro aesthetic. There are many moments within X, particularly the pornographic film within the film, where West makes the image look like grainy 16mm footage. Thematically X deal with both the sexual liberation of the time period, while also tacking the double standards of sexual attraction, since the motives for the horrific acts of the second half is Pearl’s spitefulness that she is no longer as beautiful as these young adult movie stars. The film actually doubles down on this irony by having Mia Goth (A Cure for Wellness, Suspiria) play both the porn starlet protagonist Maxine Minx and the murderous elderly antagonist Pearl, the latter being under layers of old-age make-up.
The rest of the cast of X includes Martin Henderson (The Ring) doing his best Matthew McConaughey impersonation as sleazy producer Wayne Gilroy, Brittany Snow (Pitch Perfect) shedding the squeaky clean image she has had more most of her career as Maxine’s co-star Bobby-Lynne, who shares most of her adult film scenes with Jackson Hole, played by Scott Mescudi, aka rapper Kid Cudi. Then there’s Jenna Ortega, in her third horror film this year following Scream and Studio 666, whose character of Lorraine can be described as the film’s secondary protagonist, who spends much of the first half of the film dealing with her boyfriend RJ’s pretentious desire to make a “good dirty movie.”
X arrives after five year hiatus for Ti West, following 2016’s quite enjoyable, yet little seen, ultraviolent western In a Valley of Violence. X automatically comes with heightened expectations, since it is being distributed by the boutique label A24, which has garnered a reputation for elevated genre films. I would argue that X is somewhat tonally inconsistent in parts, with some moments resulting in unintentional laughter. There is some an inherent discomfort watching the film, both for its gratuitous sexual content and general icky feeling you get around the villains.
However, I think the discomfort that comes from watching X is somewhat intentional and the film ultimately succeeds in being one very messed up homage to 1970s exploitation films.