X Starring Mia Goth, Martin Henderson and Jenna Ortega Rated R18+
X Starring Mia Goth, Martin Henderson and Jenna Ortega Rated R18+
X marks writer-director Ti West as a master of character-rich, slow-burning yet gut-wrenching horror.
In 1979 Texas, a film crew rent an elderly couple’s guest house to shoot a pornographic movie, only to end up hunted by them.
X is superbly paced, taking care to build its well-rounded characters and keep us on edge with eerie details. Mia Goth delivers an astounding performance that I can’t go into too much detail on at risk of spoiling the film, except to say that she acts under near-seamless facial prosthetics. As the situation goes brutally downhill for the film crew, the plot contains several deadly surprises, and yet the deranged elderly antagonists remain faintly tragic.
X nails (pun intended) the hedonistic atmosphere of seventies America, and despite the lurid sex scenes, the primary theme is youth: the porn actors want to enjoy their youth for as long as it lasts, and the old killers are devoted to each other, miss their youth and lash out at any reminder.
X is extremely graphic but never gratuitous, with every drop of blood serving the plot and tone. This may be a strange comparison, but X reminds me of Hot Fuzz: both films have incredibly tight screenplays, in which every single plot-point returns in a clever and impactful way later on. X is a slasher movie in the vein of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, but admirably avoids some of the genre’s dated clichés, such as the virginal girl being the only survivor. X is also morbidly funny, much like South Korean director Park Chan-wook’s film Sympathy for Mr Vengeance: depictions of extreme despair can sometimes loop around to become funny.
Excruciatingly suspenseful and outstandingly written and structured, X is playing in select Victorian cinemas.
– Seth Lukas Hynes
