by Miguel E. Rodriguez
DIRECTOR: Ti West
CAST: Mia Goth, Jenna Ortega, Brittany Snow, Kid Cudi
MY RATING: 10/10
ROTTEN TOMATOMETER: 94% Certified Fresh
PLOT: In 1979, a group of young filmmakers set out to make an adult film on a rural Texas farm, but when their elderly hosts catch them in the act, the crew find themselves fighting for their lives.
I like great horror, but I have never enjoyed slasher films, with the clear exceptions of Halloween [1978] and Psycho [1960]. They tend to fall too easily into the formulas lampooned in Scream [1996] and The Cabin in the Woods [2011] and lose all suspense when the stories cave in to ancient tropes and traditions. You’ve seen one bloodthirsty masked strangler/slasher/axe-murderer jump from behind a tree at night, you’ve seen them all.
So, how do I explain my delight and gushing praise for X, the indie horror phenomenon that turned Mia Goth and director Ti West into industry darlings? I can only report that, despite following timeworn traditions of the genre, this film somehow found a way to ratchet up the tension to almost unbearable levels. I’m not exaggerating. The night I finished watching it, I found it impossible to fall asleep right away. My mind was racing and rehashing what I had just seen. It is the creepiest, scariest horror film I’ve seen since Hereditary [2018], and I freaking LOVE Hereditary.
The plot is right out of Slasher Films 101. The year is 1979. An aspiring group of wannabe porn stars pile into a van and head to a rural Texas farm where the crusty owner has agreed to rent out his barn and guesthouse, ignorant of this motley crew’s true motives. The composition of the group reads like the beginning of a dirty joke: a cowboy, a film school graduate, his mousy girlfriend, two strippers, and a black guy (Kid Cudi…yes, that Kid Cudi).
Upon their arrival on the farm, ominous music and occasional breathy noises on the soundtrack tip us off that something just ain’t right…not to mention the blood-soaked prologue. The elderly farmer, Howard, has an elderly wife, Pearl, but we don’t see much of her at first. There’s a magnificently tense scene when one of the strippers, Maxine (Mia Goth), skinny dips in the lake behind the farm, unaware of the gator eyeing her from the opposite bank. It slithers into the lake just as Maxine starts to swim back to the dock. An overhead shot shows Maxine swimming leisurely, and the gator getting closer and closer, and…I mean, I’ve seen scores, if not hundreds of movies with similar scenes, and very few of them evoked the kind of terror I felt as that gator closed in on Maxine.
Why? This isn’t even a monster movie about a killer gator, it’s a – let’s be honest – formulaic movie with creepy old people and a slew of young people just waiting to be dispatched in hopefully creative ways. But something about how Ti West directed this film got right under my skin, in a good way. Even in the gloriously retro scenes when the ersatz film crew is shooting a sex scene, there is still an undercurrent of unease over the whole enterprise. (And by the way, if I were to make a list of things I didn’t think I’d ever see in a movie, a topless Brittany Snow in a brief-but-raunchy sex scene would be really close to the top.)
It’s hard for me to describe the intensely creepy atmosphere in writing, especially because I want to preserve the film’s surprises for anyone who hasn’t seen it yet…and boy, I wish I could be there to watch it with you. There’s the scene in the farmhouse between Maxine and the farmer’s elderly wife, Pearl, where you have absolutely every reason to believe it’s about to turn all Texas-Chainsaw, and then the scene abruptly pivots. Pearl looks like your stereotypical crazy old lady; that’s the best way I can put it. I seem to remember a few characters who looked like her in the background of Shutter Island [2010]. We learn a little bit about Pearl’s past, and we can see that she’s sharper than she looks…or maybe she’s just crazy. I’m not sayin’.
When things heat up around the halfway mark, the tension factor skyrockets. I learned a phrase a while ago that captures it perfectly: the film becomes a stress sandwich. Situations arise that we’ve all seen before, but in this movie I was on the edge of my seat waiting to see what would happen next. When Jackson (Cudi) searches the lake at night and makes a creepy discovery right out of Hitchcock. When “Don’t Fear the Reaper” plays at a critical moment. When Lorraine (Jenna Ortega…yes, that Jenna Ortega) goes to the cellar looking for a flashlight. When a soundly sleeping Maxine gets some unwanted physical contact from a nocturnal visitor. (That sound you just heard is me shuddering.)
I could write more about the plot, but I would give something away, I’m sure. To call the film’s finale satisfying is a vast understatement, right down to the very last line that, in my book, is as perfect as “Nobody’s perfect!” or “Tomorrow is another day!” Ti West has created a slasher movie for people who hate slasher movies, and it’s one of the best modern examples of the genre that has ever been made.
(P.S. Don’t spoil this for yourself by Googling it or anything if you don’t already know, but make sure you watch the closing credits. When I saw the name of the performer who plays “Pearl”, my jaw dropped.)
2 UNPAID MOVIE CRITICS!!!! 