In 1979, a group of young filmmakers set out to make an adult film in rural Texas, but when their reclusive, elderly hosts catch them in the act, the cast find themselves fighting for their lives.
- Released: 2022-03-17
- Runtime: 106 minutes
- Genre: Horror, Mystery, Thrillers
- Stars: Mia Goth, Martin Henderson, Jenna Ortega, Brittany Snow, Kid Cudi, Owen Campbell, Stephen Ure, James Gaylyn, Simon Prast, Matthew Saville, Bryony Skillington, Geoff Dolan
- Director: Ti West
Comments
- jazzoman9-735-684327 - 1 July 2024
Don't bother
What a waste of time! This could have been a lot better but sadly it wasn't. The story telling is incredibly lazy and really predictable. The lead actress was a bit boring and here preformance was flat, you didn't really care about her. The others were fine and I did like the character Bobby Lynne who was played by Brittany Snow.
I was hoping this was going to be entertaining and if so, would watch the other 2 films but not after watching this. I'm glad I didn't pay to see it!
Like I said before the story telling was lazy. It's like the writer got tired and rushed through the second half of the movie. - david-meldrum - 6 June 2024
Effective And Well Crafted
A film about people making a film is always going to run a risk of being tiresomely meta and self-referential. This flirts with that, but never goes the distance up itself. A group of young filmmakers go to an out-of-the-way house in Texas to make a porn film and find their elderly hosts to be more than they bargained for. The result is a genre-literate, expertly crafted slasher film with an eye for the gruesome. You can't help but feel the film-makers are having their cake and eating it in the way they depict the making of the adult film, but this is has a brilliantly evoked setting and some excellent performances from Mia Goth and Jenna Ortega. It's no surprise that it's spawned a couple of prequels. - fraser-simons - 10 April 2024
Fun and meta slasher flick
This put in enough work early on with the meta commentary that I ended up liking it quite a bit, despite it not quite following through perfectly with some of the themes. The Puritanism of the last girl being subverted, for example, is a fun subversion, especially given the little curve ball at the end about her background. But the notion is at odds with every woman being "no good" in the film, anyway. And when the "pure" one falls, the boyfriend subsequently emasculated by it, isn't it still the impetus for the killing to begin as most slashers? Even if it suggests it's just Pearl seeing what she saw. It's unconvincing in that respect.
What does hold up, though, is the dramatic and comedic irony. The film crew say they want to elevate their film, but really they want their own self satisfaction and it becomes nothing more than a pretence, just as the film itself jokingly becomes a slasher, with the various people dying in foreshadowed ways. The camera formerly a pretence, gives way to what the audience "wants to see", in this case, the bodies dropping.
Had it had those elements and had something more interesting to say via the horror of old age contrasted with virility stirring up literal death, I think it could have really stood out. As is, it's still extremely fun, tense, and fairly satisfying. - c-johnson0912 - 7 March 2024
Bad
This movie is bad. I tried really hard to enjoy it but it seemed like a poorly executed slasher movie from the 70's and 80's that they felt excessive sex and nudity would elevate to relevancy . Few movies in my life I have finished and legitimately felt I got nothing from and I thought "that was time I can't get back" .It was unbelievably predictable and all of the scenes resulting in kills were entirely because the victims did the most unrealistically stupid and idiotic things.
The plot and scenery was a rip off of Texas Chainsaw Massacre and the acting was marginal at best.
To be honest, I am struggling to find more words to fill the required characters on this review and I could not think of much "good". Do NOT recommend. - stevenrossiter171 - 6 January 2023
Standard and rather tedious. Mia Goth saves it
So a bunch of actors/actresses go to a deserted farmhouse to make a porn film.
None of the characters are likeable with the exception of perhaps the cameraman who gets done dirty by his church mouse girlfriend
Essentially it is boring until the last half hour when everything begins to go wrong and the slaughtering happens. The main characters in this are the old weary sexual Pearl and her husband. She just basically wants to be had by anyone and the husband is trying to protect her
There's not really much more to it than that, some of the kills are foreshadowed and the best one involves a crocodile
Not great. Thank god that Mia Goth is in it and at least makes it watchable. - ktroxdesigns - 29 December 2022
Not bad. But not great.
It was not a bad movie, but not a great movie either. Just so so. That's why I gave it a middle of the road rating.
It kept my attention. But I'm honestly not sure why it did. I think it kept my attention because it was super predictable and I wanted to see if my predictions were correct. Which they were!
I liked the period piece aspect of it. But it wasn't a very original storyline.
The acting wasn't anything special. Very mediocre. The old lady was horrible acting. And the old couple were very creepy and not in a good horror movie way. In a very, I felt uncomfortable watching them way. Such bad acting. You could easily tell it was younger people trying to play a very old person. At least in the old woman's case.
Honestly this is a skip for me. My husband liked it. But I really wouldn't recommend it. - oscarflash - 16 December 2022
one of the worst movies of the year
Firstly the acting is not that good to be labelled as one of the best movies of the year 2022. The plot and the screen play are not that good either seems stolen from several movies and put all scenes together to create this one.
For movies like Texas Chainsaw Massacre this one is far behind in terms of everything.
The sextual content is the main theme and the main hero of this movie, while it could be much better story but in the end trying to focus on one thing left the entire story and the plot unclear and repetitive and doesn't make any sense.
I hope the sequel could add up to the story since they are planning to make a trilogy of this one.
Overall score tops!
5 out of 10 IMBD - December 2022. - thelandofoo - 2 December 2022
An Eerie Throwback to Niche Horror
Ti West's X kicks off in the year of 1979 following a group of young filmmakers out to make a name for themselves with their own dirty movie. After renting a farmhouse for their picture, the elderly couple who owns the farm become more and more suspicious and curious. Right off the bat, what this movie succeeds at is emulating the 70's Era, but also the eerie nature of the subject matter and niche genre, much in thanks to the cinematography and editing that is done in a way where it feels unnatural or off. The film also doesn't fail to deliver on the brutality and gore. The score is also memorable and unnerving as we further explore the setting of the film and who these farm owners really are. Performances, I can say, are good for the kind of movie that Ti West was hoping to deliver. I guess a con would be that X acts as a throwback to the past, so it doesn't really try to do anything outside of the box, but nonetheless, is a film that executes it well. Final verdict: 8/10. - FKDZ - 19 November 2022
X
X needs some time to start up but once that first hour of slow burn is through it keeps up it's pace fairly well. Whilst I expected more, It got enough weird for me to be alright with the movie, though it tries a little too much. And an aspect of it never works. It's still a solid slasher horror.
Directing is great, though it gets notably more boring towards the end. Fairly uninteresting shots. Music is fairly good nothing too notable though. Acting is good all around the board, Brittany Snow being the standout performer.
The plot/story is easy to get, but I had massive issues with the make-up of the old couple in this movie, mainly the wife. Which made it feel like I was watching Bad Grandpa. It wasn't ever convincing. And you could tell they were ''acting'' old and just moving in slow motion. The old man didn't suffer from this as the actor was older, so the transformation wasn't massive. But the wife always felt fake. Making her scenes off putting. That said, I appreciate the original take on a horror movie.
Kills and gore are really good. They are brutal. And it's all very well done. Not super excessive, not comical. Except one shotgun scene which was hilarious. - BijeshNagesh - 5 November 2022
There's A New Slasher In Town
This movie, from the twisted genius of Ti West, recently witnessed the release of its prequel "Pearl". Since "X" released earlier, horror-movie fans received a stunning introduction to a surprising new face in the slasher genre. With "Pearl", which came after, they got an origin story that was just as shocking and twisted. I suggest you watch them back to back for optimum entertainment value. In "X", new characters returned to Pearl's old farm where fresh bloody mayhem soon unfolded.
Ti West did amazing work writing and directing this one. Tyler Bates and Chelsea Wolfe did superb work scoring this project. Malgosia Turzanska's costume design was aces. Great work all round by the editing, hair-makeup, art direction, VFX, and set decoration teams. Special shout-out to the stunts team and Eliot Rockett's cinematography. Tom Hammock's production design was top notch.
Mia Goth technically did not reprise her role as Pearl, but played a random girl named Maxine. The way Mia approached this character was curious and compelling. She gave Maxine an aura of desperate ambition and vulnerability but also the simmering threat of violence. Her performance was complex and flawless. It was also evocative of what she did in "Pearl".
Jenna Ortega as Lorraine was superb. She wonderfully balanced intrigue and intrepid curiosity through her character. Brittany Snow as Bobby-Lynne was quite good. Jackson, played by Kid Cudi, was great. Wayne, played by Martin Henderson, was noteworthy. RJ, played by Owen Campbell, was captivating. Sherriff Dentler, played by James Gaylyn, was good. The televangelist, played by Simon Prast, was also good. Howard, played by Stephen Ure, was great.
All other crew and cast did notable work in "X" now streaming on Amazon Prime Video.
The year was 1979 in "X" as opposed to 1918 in "Pearl" - both movies released in 2022. Despite the time gap, Pearl was still very much alive on the same farm, where she lived with her husband. After watching what happened in the prequel, it was interesting to note that her husband hadn't turned her in but seemed to have made peace with his wife's inner demons.
Ti West made sure to include essential flashbacks and other sequences to establish the plot's nuances, especially how it connected with the storyline in "Pearl". Even the crocodile was still around. Mia's double-acting as old Pearl was superb, to say the least. Such outstanding hair-makeup transformation.
This movie was certifiably grotesque. It also had raunchier and smuttier scenes than "Pearl", but there was method to the pornographic madness.
In "X", we saw a bunch of young filmmakers unwittingly heading over to the same isolated farmstead in rural Texas where Pearl lived. Some nice contrast-shots with Maxine who was living what she felt was her dream at the start of the 80s.
The kids were eager to get started on their adult-film enterprise. But one thing led to another and they were caught in the act. Pearl was not particularly bothered, but when neither Howard nor anyone else was willing to make her 'feel good' again, she took offense.
Things soon became a game of bloody survival for the kids who realized that the strange old woman who usually kept to herself was now out for blood. Howard, on the other hand, didn't like people enticing his wife even though he could no longer satisfy her, and that only added fuel to the proverbial fire.
But Mia Goth's Maxine was not going to take things lying down. Something visceral, even primal, was soon unleashed from within her as she did what was needed to survive. Maxine gave an almost karmic performance that will unnerve fans of this budding franchise.
Nevermind typical slasher tropes. The consistency with which Ti West captured Pearl's inability to keep from killing what she assumed was a threat to her dignity and right to have what she wanted (when she wanted it) made "X" a nuanced horror movie sequel that was eerie, creepy, grotesque, and discomfiting.
