X (2022) ; Ti West

I had listened to a YouTube reviewer say that Ti West's "X" wasn't really A24 in the grander sense of the quality one associates with them, and I'm like, "I just can't disagree more." I think there is a lot going on here than just "old folks murder pornographers in the rented boarding house". There is themes all over the place: the cruel nature of aging and how that wrecks vanity and creates something even uglier as a result, the desire to leave behind stranglehold of a very strict, religious upbringing to embrace the desire to be free sexually considered rebelling as a result, the crippling jealousy and yearning for youth when the body is no longer desirable, opposing relationship viewpoints regarding bodily and sexual agency and monogamy, and what it means to be in control of your own life and sexuality. 

Yes, there is Chekhov's Gun where a gator is introduced in a lake as Maxine is swimming, so it is almost a certainty someone was going to be food for it eventually. I will admit this has some slasher particulars that instigate yelling at characters at the screen not to "follow the creepy guy with the shotgun into woods at night" and "don't go into that damned dark basement alone" with the expected horror show results.

I didn't have a clue who Mia Goth was going into the film, but I definitely do now. This is a knockout performance, and she has an incredible screen presence. And her sex scene is fire. Speaking of sex scenes, Brittany Snow has fucking arrived now. My mind took me back to "Prom Night" and how she was just another pretty blond trying to fend off a stalker psycho populating Lifetime's movie library. But in this film she even has a Meg Ryan moment faking pleasure while teasing Mescudi, who was pretty high on himself after fucking Snow...Snow wiping off the cum was more than a bit unexpected! I don't know what it was, but Ti West got something out of Snow I wasn't anticipating at all...she reached into her inner wild child and pulled that out in showstopping style.

There is this interesting dynamic between Mescudi's two-term Nam veteran and the decaying Stephen Ure, a WW veteran seething with hostility towards him for his stamina and virility. Mescudi actually treats him with respect to his own detriment. I hadn't realized Goth was playing the skin-and-bones Pearl, Ure's wife. There is this particularly grotesque scene some perhaps might find arousing involving old people sex while Goth's Maxine is under the bed trying to find a way out of the bedroom. And Fulci fans get some eye gouging when Martin Henderson's cowboy pornographer/stripclub owner is looking through holes in a barn door. Speaking of Henderson, he sure does seem to be having a hell of a good time, swagger and confidence abound, completely sure that his porn film will set the video market ablaze. 

While both Goth and Snow are all in on authenticity, allowing themselves to be nude on camera while fucking Mescudi, Ortega is "protected" from doing that...Ortega opts to be in bra and panties with Ti breaking away as her sound/boom mic operator for boyfriend, Owen Campbell, (who is angst-ridden and not okay with her wanting to go in front of the camera as a performer) records the scene in protest.

I think there is a great dialogue scene involving sexual repression and liberation, as Ortega gets advice from Snow and Goth to not let her youth go to waste while Campbell isn't happy about that decision. Of course, Henderson loves the idea of another pretty girl naked on camera, so he certainly doesn't protest it, even as Campbell almost leaves in the van.

When the slasher film kicks in: it is full hog. Shot gun blast to the face and Ti points the camera right into mess. Pearl tells Howard (Ure) she never liked blonds when she pushes a victim into the lake to be gator bait. Pearl doesn't take rejection well when an attempted seduction is thwarted, using a steak knife plunged into his throat, not stopping there while he bleeds out on the ground...by the time she's done his head is practically separated from the rest of his body while blood splatters on the van light as Pearl is bathed in both actual blood and red light. A hand reaches through a hole in the locked basement door to unlatch it when the butt of a shotgun tears apart the fingers. A shotgun knocks Pearl back, breaking her hip as Maxine drives over her head to shut her the fuck up. Howard can no longer tolerate the presence of a hunk in his sexual prime, deciding to unload the shotgun into him. When the opening of the film has the police surveying quite a bit of bloody carnage as a crime scene is laid out as a primer for us until West goes back 24 hours, we are prepared for quite a Texas bloodbath.

Now it has to be said, this has Texas Chainsaw all over it, but, at least, Ti doesn't just jerk off Hooper's film and not create something uniquely his own. There is a scene where Henderson approaches Ure's door and West shoots from inside the house that just sets off TCM vibes...it is obvious without being just a straight ripoff since West goes with his own movie, establishing the elderly couple as more than just ogres rotting away their final years outside the scope of society. There are desires and longings and lusts that remain in these two that seem to be denied...and a porn shoot next door will only set off a raging brush fire that sparks a great deal of violence.

Probably the ickiest scene besides old people sex is Pearl lying naked next to Maxine, her bloody hands just groping the flesh of the young woman. Space is invaded and inappropriate touching very much unwarranted leaves Maxine scrubbing her body after a good scream. Pearl scurries away as Snow's Bobby-Lynne tries to see how she's doing...to her own peril.

I remain amazed at how many films are shot all over the world depicting Texas while never shooting in Texas. I guess filming in the actual state is expensive. I just figured since there is so much generated interest in stories set in the state, there would be tax incentives to actually lure filmmakers to the actual place.