As I sat watching Ti West’s X on the big screen in 2022, I knew I was experiencing something special. A gritty, hard-hitting motion picture, it would go on to rank #1 on my list of the year’s Top 10 horror films.
Having just seen it again, I can’t shake the feeling I may have shortchanged it that first time around. X is, far and away, the best movie of the 2020’s. Period. All genres. On top of that, it’s the first film of the decade to crack my 250 Favorite Movies list.
Yes, X is that good.
The year is 1979. Night club owner Wayne (Martin Henderson) aspires to make a name for himself in the porn industry, and convinces both his stripper girlfriend Maxine (Mia Goth) and talented employee Bobby-Lynne (Brittany Snow) to star in his first X-rated film. With Jackson (Kid Cudi) as the male lead, and film student RJ (Owen Campbell) and RJ’s girlfriend Lorraine (Jenna Ortega) handling the technical side of things, Wayne predicts they’re all going to make a boatload of money.
Packing everyone and everything into a van, the troupe makes its way to rural Texas, where Wayne has rented a guest house situated on the property of elderly farmer Howard (Stephen Ure), who lives alone with his wife Pearl (also played by Mia Goth).
Once they’ve settled in, Wayne and the others get down to business, shooting one sex scene after another, all the while hoping Howard won’t figure out what they’re up to in his guest house.
But Howard isn’t the one they need to worry about, as Maxine discovers when Pearl takes a liking to her. Pearl may seem like a frail old woman, but the obsession driving her, which is not unlike the one pushing Maxine to excel in the adult entertainment industry, makes Pearl more dangerous than anyone could have imagined
Exploring themes of sexuality, desire, and a burning passion to be the best, X is also a loving tribute to the horror movies of the 1970s, films like The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (West duplicates several shots from Tobe Hooper’s masterpiece, including the darkened silhouette of Wayne standing in the doorway of Howard’s farmhouse, asking if anyone is home); Hooper’s 1976 follow-up Eaten Alive (a pond on Howard’s property is home to an enormous alligator); and John Carpenter’s Halloween (it’s no coincidence that, during the scene when X first takes on the characteristic of a slasher film, Blue Oyster Cult’s “Don’t Fear the Reaper” fills the soundtrack).
Along with these nods to the past, X matches the down-and-dirty look of both a ‘70s grindhouse flick and a porno from the same era. West never backs down from his subject matter, filling the screen with graphic nudity and, eventually, graphic violence, making. X the perfect first entry in what would become an intriguing trilogy (followed by the prequel Pearl, also 2022, and the 2024 sequel MaXXXine).
The film tackles both fame and sexual desire by way of the passions driving Pearl and Maxine, each played wonderfully by Mia Goth. Having not read or seen anything about the movie prior to my initial viewing, I didn’t even know until afterwards that Goth also played the elderly Pearl (she disappears behind excellent make-up)! Her performance as these two pivotal characters, each as ambitious as the other, will blow you away.
Maxine is determined to become a star, even if it takes appearing in pornos to get her there. Pearl, who we discover also once had dreams of making it big in show business, now longs for the vitality of youth, the sexual intensity that Maxine so expertly conveys in front of the camera (Pearl was secretly peering through the window when Maxine shot her first sex scene). Pearl becomes fixated on Maxine, a preoccupation that at first struck me as a sexual attraction. But on second watch, I see that Pearl coveted Maxine’s good looks, her vitality, her charisma. Much like Elizabeth Bathory, the 16th century Hungarian noblewoman and convicted serial killer rumored to have bathed in the blood of virgins to retain her youth, Pearl wanted to draw from Maxine’s life essence, to make her more desirable to both Howard and several members of Wayne’s crew. Her dreams of stardom may have faded over time, yet she still longs to be the center of attention, and It’s when Pearl fails at seduction (save one very memorable bedroom scene with Howard) that she becomes dangerous.
The parallels drawn between Maxine and Pearl, as well as its various homages to horror classics and the occasional jab at the adult film industry (RJ, who says he wants to make an ‘artistic’ porn flick, has no problem shooting one sex scene after another until his girlfriend Lorraine decides she also wants to be in the movie), transform X into what I consider the best film of the admittedly young decade, and a movie that, over time, could very well prove to be one of the greatest ever made.
Rating: 10 out of 10
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