"X" review — Ti West's retro-slasher is a bloody good time

“I will not accept a life I don’t deserve.”

Content warning: this review discusses some adult themes.

It’s a rare thing for horror films to have fun anymore. The world of contemporary horror is dominated by films that take themselves deathly seriously, focusing on complex themes and psychologically-driven stories. It’s films like Ari Aster’s Hereditary (2019), Jordan Peele’s Get Out (2017), and Robert Eggers’ The Lighthouse (2019) that are defining what the genre looks like now. Horror has come a long way since the cheap, campy, and hilariously dated slashers of the 1970s and 1980s that once ruled the genre. But here, Ti West’s X stands out as an exception amongst its peers.

The story takes place in 1979 Texas, ten years into the “Golden Age of Porn.” A group of aspiring adult filmmakers and performers leave Austin with a camera in hand hoping to make it big in the quickly-exploding home video circuit. With their script for their film The Farmer’s Daughters in hand, the crew heads to a rural farm run by an unpleasant elderly couple in a search for their own studio backlot. As one might imagine with a film like this, things quickly turn sour for the protagonists as the couple, Pearl (Mia Goth) and Howard (Stephen Ure), prove to be more than a little dangerous and the bodies begin to pile up. Dripping with style and energy, X is a devilishly delightful throw-back flick to times gone by. It keeps things refreshingly simple and is fully unapologetic for what it is.

X starts with the promise of the terror to come. The local sheriff (James Gaylyn) and his band of lieutenants arrive at the farm just hours after a string of deadly murders. There’s blood along the walls and bodies in the hallway, the corpses carefully covered with sheets and other set dressing to prevent revealing their identity. Cutting to only twenty-four hours earlier, we meet Maxine (also Mia Goth) snorting a line of cocaine in her dressing room before staring herself down in the mirror. She’s interrupted by her producer and soon-to-be fiancé Wayne (Martin Henderson), pushing her to get out the door. The team piles into a van and ventures out into the wilderness, with New Zealand standing in for the Texas desert.

Mia Goth in X. Photo: A24.

The image of the young people crowded into the back of the van evokes images of Tobe Hooper’s The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974). West wears his influences on his sleeve and X is all the better for it. The film manages to be a better successor to Hooper’s work than the awful Netflix sequel released earlier this year. West pulls visual inspiration freely from Hooper’s film, although strays far away from its nihilism, and manages to capture the free spirit that defines so much of filmmaking in the 1970s. West allows his film to freely inhabit its own identity free of any rules of the genre. It’s a fun throwback to the filmmaking of days gone by but manages to elevate itself as more than just a nostalgia trip. West has a knack for building tension and letting the slower sections of the film feel just as engaging through his delightfully written characters. The imagery in the film is quite excellent. One particular sequence of blood splattering onto the headlights of a van which in turn slowly drenches the entire scene in a murderous red stands out as one of the film’s most insidious and provocative moments.

As the van rumbles down the highway and the sense of unease begins to rise, we’re introduced to the entertaining ensemble that gives X the energy it needs to get through a slow-burn first half. Goth’s double duty as Maxine and the villainous Pearl makes her the film’s standout, but she’s far from carrying the film alone. Henderson is excellent as the sleazy wannabe porn producer Wayne. Aside from Maxine, The Farmer’s Daughters is headlined by Vietnam vet Jackson (Scott Mescudi, although better known by his stage name Kid Cudi) and blonde bombshell Bobby-Lynne (Brittany Snow). X’s film-within-the-film is directed by struggling independent filmmaker RJ (Owen Campbell), who wants to preserve the integrity of the spirit of cinema despite working on porn. The cast is rounded out by the quiet Lorraine (Jenna Ortega, following up on her work in Scream (2022)), the boom operator and RJ’s girlfriend nicknamed “Church Mouse” by the others in the film.

But once night falls on the farm, this group of oddballs and dimwits is fodder for the wrath of Pearl and Howard.

X is a bloody good time. Managing a careful balance of old-school inspiration with decidedly contemporary editing and production sensibilities, X is a return to a simpler time of filmmaking. While far from a good fit for everyone, I can’t help but love what West is up to here. It’s vehemently surface level and doesn’t offer itself to any particular grandstanding ideas, but not to its detriment. X is a riot from its mysterious opening, through its burning first-hall, to its whirlwind third act, and its cheesy final line. To quote Wayne, “You got that X factor.”

Score: 4

X is now playing in theatres.

X information
Written and directed by Ti West
Starring Mia Goth, Jenna Ortega, Martin Henderson, Scott Mescudi, Brittany Snow, Owen Campbell, Stephen Ure, James Gaylyn
Released 18 March 2022
106 minutes