X (2022 | USA | 105 minutes | Ti West)
From the opening shots — a crime scene at a rural farmhouse — we know that we’re both in for a ride and in extremely capable hands. The camera surveys the scene with deliberation: first the silent sirens of police cars, gradually bringing us closer, with each movement exposing another level of gore and revealing the scale of the unspecified terror. First a blood-soaked corpse covered in a sheet, a spattered wall, more bodies slumped against the wall, the sheriff and his deputies making their way into the house, descending into an ominous basement, and witnessing a horrifying scene that we’ll have to wait about a hundred more minutes to see for ourselves.
It’s a hell of a setup from director Ti West, whose style here echoes the school of hyper-acrobatic, ever-aggressive camerawork that’ll feel familiar to fans of executive producer Sam Levinson’s work in Euphoria and Malcolm & Marie. Every shot is an excuse for an innovative angle; every setting a opportunity for an interesting camera movement; every plot development a chance for a cross-cut or overlaid edit. In a film with a tight timeline and fairly direct plot, it locks the audience in for the thrills and never gives anyone a chance to get remotely bored.
From the opening, the film cuts back twenty-four hours to the beginning of so many deadly misadventures: a mountain of dirty cocaine on its way from a mirror into the nostrils of a dancer who refuses to accept a life she doesn’t deserve. Mia Goth (seen previously in Nymphomaniac, Susperia, and High Life) plays Maxine Minx, a stripper with superstar ambitions, who trusts her hunk of a boyfriend Wayne (Martin Henderson) to launch her career into orbit by way of self-producing an adult film called The Farmer’s Daughter. She’s phenomenal, playing the role as ever-so-slightly more ambitious and aware than everyone around her. It’s 1979 and they’re emboldened by the burgeoning home video market and the mainstream success of films like Deep Throat. If everyone else is getting rich off of sex on film, why not a gang of hot libertines from Houston?
So they set forth from their concrete burlesque club into a conversion van with fellow would be film stars Bobby-Lynne (Brittany Snow as the older, wiser, blonde bombshell) and Jackson Hole (Scott Mescudi, the rapper Kid Cudi, as a Vietnam veteran whose as proud of his two tours of duty as his impressive member). They’re joined by an up-and-coming director RJ (Owen Campbell) with Godard-ian ambitions and his seemingly naïve girlfriend Lorraine Day (Jenna Ortega) who’s uncomfortably along for the ride to provide technical support. To stretch their meager budget further, they drive out for a weekend in the country at a remote farmhouse.
Upon arrival they ignore the cardinal rule of vacation rentals. Namely, if you’re greeted by a demented old man who points a shotgun in your face when you try to check into the guesthouse you’re planning to use as an illicit film set, G. T. F. O. Whatever deposit you paid isn’t worth it, no matter how many textures the setting provides to elevate the look of your porno. When almost getting killed by a cantankerous senior with leathery skin and a single tooth in his head doesn’t dissuade you from setting up shop, and the creepy old lady leering from an upstairs window doesn’t give you pause, it gives the audience permission to delight in the bloodbath that awaits.
But before we get there, there’s the self-knowing matter of the making an adult film with interesting angles echoing the French avant garde, which the director mentions as a way of making it look classier while hiding the low budget. West may be winking at the audience to let us in on the joke, but seeing the sly humor doesn’t undermine the lusty filmmaking and on-set intrigue of the film-within-the film. Nor does it diminish the suspense of a showy drone shot of a nude sunbath in an murky green pond or soften the supremely creepy interaction when Maxime meets the lady of the house who despairs for her own faded beauty and sees something of herself in the young actress. (Yet another meta-textual nod that took me far too long to recognize).
As a night of athletic intercourse and successful sensual filmmaking comes to a close, the gang settles around for a frank discussion of sexual freedom over a communal dinner, relaxes to an acoustic cover of “Landslide” in their surprisingly cozy guesthouse, and considers a suggestion from the “church mouse” A/V tech girlfriend about the plot of their film. Her boyfriend director is appalled at the idea that his carefully-constructed film could drastically change course at the midpoint. You can’t help but laugh as his arguments are rebutted by allusions to Hitchcock and MacGuffins as it’s obvious that this film is also about to take a sharp turn of its own.
I usually cower from gore and scares, but the structure and knowing glances of West’s film made the impending bloodbath something approaching a gleeful thrill ride. The descent into slasher homage opens yet another toolbox of directorial stunting, playing with reflections within lenses, suspense-building overhead shots, peekaboo inserts, practical details as spotlights, and fountains of blood as color-washes, with the clever mayhem incited by another clever needle drop. While we never got to know them that well, you can’t help but feel bad for each of these characters as they meet their gory ends. Their only crime was being young, attractive, unashamed of their desires, and frankly far too polite to their decrepit, undersexed, hosts.
Few films are brave enough to confront the dangers of senior sexuality in conflict with generational morality shifts, but if you’re going to see one, it might as well have a sense of humor about itself. So while there are definitely some squirmy moments as the slashing escalates to full velocity, as the appealing cast is dispatched in increasingly creative if gruesome fashion, the absurdity of it all and the self-reflexive humor garnered more cheers and laughs than screams. With ruthless efficiency, relentless visual flourishes, and clever plotting, this is a movie better very much suited to the big screen. If you’re going to react to something horrible with applause, it feels a lot better not to be clapping alone.
X had its World Premiere at SXSW and arrives in theaters on March 18th. Header image courtesy A24.