X Review: Ti West Seduces and Slashes Again

Death, taxes, and the periodical revisitation to the “elevated horror” conversation are the only things one can count on in life. Rising like a fart in the bathtub, the discussion within film circles and art circles alike has been surfaced for nearly as long as film has been cranking through cameras and projectors. This is not to say that this discussion has not brought about some interesting takes and realizations about the beloved genre, but it is to say that these tedious reshashings would greatly benefit from a little historical awareness and a whole lot of blood.

Ti West’s latest meta-analytical slasher X toes the line between sharply aware film criticism and a good old fashioned bloodbath. It both inhabits and examines horror film and horror film criticism, which is no easy feat. West gets a little help with this task by using the lens of another film genre: porn.

Sex and violence have always been easy bedfellows (check out Linda Williams’s writing on the body genres to fall down a delightful movie nerd rabbit hole), and West enters into X well aware of their tangled academic histories.

X follows a small, ragtag group of filmmakers as they set out into the middle of nowhere Texas to film the next great American porno. Wayne (Martin Henderson) wants to make the next Debbie Does Dallas and has managed to wrangle RJ (Owen Campbell) as his cameraman. RJ is quite keen on making this “elevated” porn, using camera angles and his inflated film vocabulary to rise above all of the previous smut he considers beneath him. Wayne’s almost fiancée Maxine (Mia Goth) and the blonde bombshell Bobby-Lynne (Brittany Snow) are along as the female performers, and Jackson (Kid Cudi) is the sole male member of the cast. RJ’s quiet girlfriend Lorraine (Jenna Ortega) is on sound duties, though she is quite upset for RJ not telling her the type of movie they would be shooting. This gang of six head out to a farmhouse outside the city to start rolling and boning their way to money and stardom. At least, that’s what they hope will happen.

Advertisements

True to any Texas road trip out to a farmhouse in the middle of nowhere, these upbeat and horny folks run into some major issues. Not only is their house rental on the same grounds as a trigger happy and casually racist octogenarian (Stephen Ure), but it also turns out Wayne hasn’t told this grumpy old man how many of them are coming or what they will be doing on the senior citizen’s property.

While things eventually get down to some slashtastic violence, West is quite smart about the way it gets there. He tips his hat to both the annals of horror history and to film discussion in general. RJ is the perfect conduit to kick up discussion of how certain horror films have been categorized and “othered” by their own filmmakers and often their audiences. These conversations are filtered through the equally rampant and snooty discussion of elevated porn, though the context of these talks within a horror film make it easy to connect that dotted line from one genre to the next.

When things finally kick into a visceral tizzy, West once again shows that he can sustain tension and let the blood rain with the best of them. The kills start stacking up in both expected and unexpected ways. Just as the audience gets lulled into established expectations, something delightful and surprising happens that is as gross as it is exciting.

There is also a dose of humour within a lot of the violence here. Some of the laughs might come from nerves or to cut the thick tension, but there are a few beats within X that can only be seen as effective and intentional jokes at the expense of the characters’ pain. X also contains one of the best iterations of a Chekhov’s alligator to date. The moment that gator comes on screen, you have to know a payoff will be coming eventually, and it does.

Advertisements

X tries its best to have all these killings mean something. There is motivation, however deranged it may be. In doing this, and engaging with the richness of certain horror films that are discussed as “elevated genre” X occupies the same space as the films it discusses. It is both the self and the examined self, and Freud would have a field day with X’s preoccupation with beauty and aging. Not to mention fathers and Christianity too. There is something here for everyone.

Goth is incredible as Maxine. Her character is uncomplicated and Goth brings her to screen without conflating basic and boring. Snow is similarly stellar as the outgoing and experienced star who cares little about the opinions of people she is uninterested in. In fact, all of the small cast delivers pitch perfect performances in X, no matter how sexy or how terrified they are at any given time.

Balancing text and subtext, sexy and scary, and old and new is tricky, but Ti West truly pulls it off here. X is a horrifying and self-aware slasher that knows no film exists in a bubble. It embraces cinematic history, humps it, then slashes its throat.



Comments

Advertisement



Advertisement


Advertisement