X ★★★★
TI WEST roars back into horror with X, one of the best entries for the genre so far in 2022.
The young American director made a half-dozen horror films between 2005 and 2013, including the very well regarded House of the Devil and The Innkeepers, and was being touted as the next Eli Roth.
But suddenly he headed off to television and explored a range of genres, presumably making some decent cash along the way to aid the eventual return to his first love.
West wrote, directed, produced and edited X which manages to create real characters that an audience can care about while pushing the envelope on mainstream cinema blood and gore.
It’s a clever script with carefully chosen elements of the plot littered throughout the film that pay-off in the final act.
While the setting is Texas in 1979 this isn’t a Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake, although it certainly pays homage to Tobe Hooper’s classic slasher.
Maxine Minx, played well by Mia Goth, is an aspiring young pornographic film actress whose producer boyfriend Wayne (Martin Henderson) is determined to cash in on the growing home video market.
Wayne has also enlisted porn actors Bobby Lynne (Brittany Snow) and Jackson Hole (Scott Mescudi) and young director RJ (Owen Campbell) who has his own aspirations of making a French New Wave style art film, albeit with extended sex scenes. RJ’s girlfriend Lorraine (Jenny Ortega) is the reluctant sound recordist.
The group arrive on a farm run by an old couple. Wayne has rented a second farm house on the property without revealing to the old man that they will be making a porno.
The filmmakers get down to business and everything appears to be going well until the old couple realise what is happening and the group find themselves the targets of retribution.
While this sounds like a standard slasher it isn’t. There are aspects of the character interaction on both sides that make it far more involving and emotional for the audience while the script also touches on the politics and culture of the era and the challenges of growing old and bitter.
I’m being necessarily oblique here because one of the joys of the film is the character development which isn’t something usually being pointed out in a vicious slasher movie.
But this isn’t just an intellectual pursuit with West producing some brutal kills and truly thrilling sequences, particularly an overhead at a nearby river.
Thankfully the effects and makeup are not only all practical but of the highest quality. All the performances are very good, particular Goth who plays two characters.
Two more things to mention. The film was shot in New Zealand but, like Power of the Dog’s Montana, you wouldn’t know it.
West has also revealed that a prequel film was shot back-to-back with X and hopefully we will see that in 2023.
In the US cinema release the film had an after credits sequence promoting the prequel, currently called Pearl. If you’re interested after seeing X, you can find it somewhere on the web.
Get out and see this one. It’s a ripper.