|
 (042122)
X is a strong and subversive Meta mad slasher/erotic film that was heavily
influenced by the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Although the film never
quite rises to the level of that classic, it never fails to be engaging and
frightening plus it adds some interesting updates to the genre. Also, it
effectively builds dramatic tension and some individual scenes are genuinely
inspired.
There are also echoes of Paul Schrader’s underrated ‘70s film Hardcore because
we eventually discover one of the characters who has entered the world of
pornography is a preacher’s daughter rebelling against her dad. The crazy aged
woman seems inspired at least partially by Mrs.Bates in Psycho and the film’s
main theme is the agony and torture of aging.
The film is set in the 70’s, a decade in which porn film makers started making
artier erotic films and some X films (like Debbie Does Dallas, Behind the Green
Door, and Emmanuelle) were making it into the mainstream theatres. The director
character played by Owen Campbell in this film (like the one in Boogie Night) is
half convinced that he is making an Indy art film with French New wave
influences, but he is fooling himself. He is in the smut business.
X is about a group of young people who go to a farm in a secluded part of Texas
so they can shoot a porn film titled Farmer’s Daughters. The property is rented
from a creepy older couple who always seem to be ominously spying on the film
people in the background. As the terror builds, we see parts of the porn film
which is genuinely erotic and often funny (but it never resembles art) within
the horror film.
The film was made by Ty West, a gifted horror director who also did the
marvelous retro horror, House of the Devil which featured the terrific Andy
Warhol repertory actress, Mary Woronov (whom I
interviewed).
His next project, Pearl will be a prequel to X was shot back-to-back with
it. His films look old fashioned (House of the Dead was shot like a 70’s
midnight film) and West is obviously enamored with film techniques associated
with the past for instance many of his films feature split screen shots which
were very popular in the 70s. I recall Medium Cool using them extensively.
The main female character, Maxine, is played by the freckled Portuguese actress,
Mia Goth (full name: Mia Gypsy Mello da Silva Goth) who was also in Clair
Dennis’s sci fi film, High Life (2018) as well as the horror dance remake of
Suspiria (2018). Here she plays an ambitious porn actress who wants to rise to
the top and always goes around proclaiming that she wants to finally get what
she deserves.
There is an extremely riveting scene in which she goes skinning dipping and she
is observed by both a local psycho while an alligator stalks her. This
leaves the audience wondering which one will get her first or if she will just
end up having sex with someone in the water. With the swamp setting, and the
nude long shot, the sequence seems like it could have been in a Russ Meyer film.
Jenny Ortega is a frequently wide-eyed, girlish actress who is known for her
work in such horror films as The Babysitter: Killer Queen (2020), Scream (2022)
and the recent Dave Grohl vehicle: Studio 666 (2022) as well as the show: Jane
the Virgin (2014-2019). Here she plays Loraine, a sound technician who is so
meek and unassuming that everyone calls her “church mouse.” She shocks everyone
(and horrifies her cinematographer boyfriend) when she asks to do a sex scene in
the film, but she gets more than she bargained for. Her boyfriend, the geeky
director is a hypocrite because he has no problems shooting other people having
sex and making money off it, but he forbids his girlfriend from doing a scene.
This is despite his free-spirited pronouncements, he is truly a reactionary, and
his eyes she will no longer be a “good girl.”
Martin Henderson who was in The Ring (2002) as well as Grey’s Anatomy is Wayne
Gilroy, the southern good old boy producer who does everything he can to keep
the production together. With his boyish good looks, his cowboy hat and his
habit of counseling people he reminded me of the character, Andy Travis on the
old sitcom WKRP in Cincinnati (1978-82).
Finally, Brittany Show (from Pitch Perfect and Harry’s Law) portrays, the
playful blonde porn star who is in a relationship with an African American actor
and tries to compartmentalize the love and sex aspects of her life. Scott Medescu portrays her somewhat vain but decent boyfriend who she often does sex
scenes with. Except for their career they seem to be a fairly normal couple.
In the second half of the film, people begin to disappear and later on their
bodies are found bloody and mutilated. While it is not too hard to figure out
who the killers will be from the beginning, their motivations and reasons for
killing are interesting and tragic.
In the end, the film transcends, updates, and improves upon its genre. The film
has a split point of view because although many of the early scenes are shot
replicating the traditional male gaze (which Laura Mulvey wrote about
masterfully in her Hitchcock exploration, “The Pleasure of Looking and the Male
Gaze in Hitchcock’s Rear Window and Vertigo”) while some of the last part of the
film is told from a female perspective and the tracking shots are often from a
villainous female point of view.
Spoiler alert: Also, without giving too much of the plot away the film makes us
question the traditional polarization between good girl and bad girl or virgins
and whores, and audiences might be surprised that a surviving female is not a
traditional mad slasher “last girl,” like in Jaimee Lee Curtis in Halloween or
Vera Miles in Psycho.
X is like
Coda (an unlikely comparison) finds clever ways to
enliven and update a fairly formulaic plot enough to make it worthwhile. Of
course, I think that fans of old horror films will get the homage's and
references to old films more and they will get more out of the film.
|
