Directed by:
Ti WestScreenplay:
Ti WestCinematography:
Eliot RockettCast:
Mia Goth, Jenna Ortega, Brittany Snow, Kid Cudi, Martin Henderson, Owen Campbell, Geoff Dolan, James Gaylyn, Stephen Ure, Bryony SkillingtonVOD (2)
Plots(1)
At a secluded farmhouse in Texas, a film crew arrives to shoot an adult film. Their hosts, a reclusive elderly couple, take a special interest in their young guests. As night falls the couple's leering interest turns violent. (Finnkino)
Videos (1)
Reviews (11)
An attempt at ambitious horror that doesn’t quite work. For the first hour or so, up until the first murder, it's a great directorial ride with an imaginative composition of shots, a witty timing of scenes (the crocodile from a bird's eye view!) and a top notch casting, all original characters and I loved it all; that long wait for the peak was a five-star job. But then, as the spiral of violence begins, the story winds clichédly along predictable paths, the murders are anything but interesting, though in one West recalls Fulci, and it all culminates in scenes you really don't want to see (gerontophilic sex). It's a film of two halves, and the first one, where it escalates, paradoxically outweighs the second one by a head; sometimes less is more.
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Despite a rather tepid pace in the first half, the creative skill of the filmmakers makes this an extremely atmospheric affair that cleverly references the greatest horror classics. Horror is of course what it is, yet it's not just superficially scary, and impresses more with its powerful visuals (the alligator chase shot is simply divine and the split-screen guitar sequence is an absolute treat), including the simple yet perfectly effective and believable motivations of the two main bad guys. A strong (non-)mainstream piece of work that feels old-fashioned and innovative at the same time. [80%]
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If you're looking for a classic slasher, you've come to the right place. You've got a group of young idiots on one side and a couple of elderly folks with unfulfilled dreams on the other. Add in sex, blood, rock and roll, and surprisingly good filmmaking. The director and cinematographer have a keen eye for great shots, and the period atmosphere is spot-on.
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X is the most inventively directed seventies exploitation flick by a contemporary young filmmaker. Ti West knows what he’s doing as he plays with the viewers and genre techniques, mixes a bit of soft-core porn with a chunk of hard slasher, and doesn’t forget to be a little bit deviant. But mainly, he gives form to the classic slasher premise of “horny teens must die” in the craftiest way in recent decades. X won’t scare you, but the more you are at home in the genre and love a breath of fresh air in it, the more you’ll enjoy the story of unfortunate visitors to the evil farm. Also, bare breasts.
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There hasn't been a horror film since It Follows that so creatively and intelligently pays homage to a single genre phase and, moreover, serves as a faithful commentary not only on the film culture of the time, but on the era itself. The return to 1979 on the hot Texas plains is not just a retro comeback of hixploitation (the clash of urban cool kids with Southern rednecks), of which there are many – and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre alone has eight futile sequels – X revives an entire libertine decade when censors increasingly had to grant the inaccessible X rating, with an emphasis on the most natural and at the same time the most taboo topic: sex. First of all, this is not a straightforward physical confrontation like in the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre, to which Ti West deliberately refers in some of the stylistic choices (hunter-victim shooting), the opening gas station stop, the Texas setting, etc., this one builds on ingenious parallelisms between the two camps of characters, who have essentially the same needs and whose sexual options are separated only (and significantly) by their age. People don't change mentally, but the inexorable passage of time always shows itself. Whether physically on individuals or on the nature of society, which dictates what is in – and in the seventies, "tits and ass, and a big dick" were all the rage, to borrow an idea from the magical Jenny Ortega. And so it's only natural that this film’s final girl has to be a shameful slut to survive, facing another, very wrinkled shameful slut. It's brilliantly shot, perhaps just a little too posed and lengthy in places, the retro look is good and the level of brutality is not such that the violence draws attention to itself and distracts from the compelling and often quite true-to-life ideas: "one day we're gonna be too old to fuck", or a retired couple will come with pitchforks to deal with their mental issues the way, well, only rednecks can. 85% and the fifth star goes for the fact that this just turned out to be the film for me.
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