X

I can't with movies full of characters that just walk around without any instinct doing the absolute dumbest things they could possibly choose before they're murdered. It's literally the whole movie. The 'action and gore' is actually pretty tame. The sex is explicit. The characters are idiots.

Zero expectations or knowledge about this movie when I turned this one on. I knew it was a horror movie and that was it. Watching it, I could feel the love that the creators had for the old age of horror movies, the era of slashers and all the things that Scream once dissected and made light of, an age of horror movie rules where you expect sex to equal death and the final girl to surmount all odds and take on the horrible entity terrorizing them.

The idea of this movie seems like something I should have really enjoyed. The reality of it was more underwhelming. I never found myself connecting to the characters, so when things start to go awry, I had no investment in their existence. They were just red shirts in a horror movie. I expected them to die and most of them met that expectation. It was fine. It never really tipped the scales into love, never into hate, it lingered in the realm of quiet acceptance of what was going on, a positive tolerance that never reached proper enjoyment.

Not really a jump scare sort of deal and like if you read the little description about the movie it has all the spoilers in it already.

First point, I thought it was really funny when kid Cudi was standing in the door frame and you could only see his shadow

Secondly For a movie about making a porno, there were adequate number boobs shown.

And the prosthetics used to make the main actor look older we're great. In all worth a watch like most things above 5 stars

Little note to IMDB -Not only do I not want to write a 500 word essay I also would not like reading other peoples 500 word essays. Make it like 200 easy.

An interesting slow burn, but without enough to make it stand against the countless other slasher films, X is a fine film and another tribute to the iconic genre that made horror so popular in the first place. Granted, I do enjoy myself a slasher film from time to time- I'm quite fond of films like Nightmare on Elm Street and My Bloody Valentine, but where X faults among the others is through using a rather familiar formula without any true unique purpose. Throughout the film the characters often talk about an X factor, something that makes Mia Goth's character special and starworthy- but unlike its mentionings- this film just doesn't have that. The acting is really good, I love the underrated Mia Goth as always- as well as Brittany Snow, Martin Henderson, and even Kid Cudi did a rather impressive job. The cinematography is fantastic and perfectly fits the amitpshere and tone the film is going for. The music is enjoyable and tense, and its pacing can be a bit slow at times, but does allow for an interesting point of view. Its main problem lies solely in its script, which revolves largely around a smut film production- but takes too many elements and formulaic tendencies from other horror films like Evil Dead, Friday the 13th, The Visit and most obviously Texas Chainsaw Massacre to really stand out on its own and become its own thing. In the end, its not a bad watch, I wouldn't watch it again, but I certainly didn't mind watching it. It isn't the most memorable, but I certainly don't have any disdain for it. It just could have been more, especially given the talent involved, but ironically it settled for less.

My Rating: 5.8/10.

Ti West's movie really should have been called "E" for elevated. It sets itself up as a smart take on the slasher films of the 70s and early 80s. As a bonus, the film within a film has the filmmakers making an 'elevated' porn flick (as a bonus, actor Owen Campbell who plays the "Director" even looks a bit like Director Tobe Hooper).

Quite consciously taking it's set up from Tobe Hooper's 1974 TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE, X has a group of randy pornographers renting a farmhouse from an elderly couple in the middle of nowhere in Texas (actually New Zealand). Writer-Director West's main idea here is to set up a contrast between the XXX filmmakers and the bible thumping civilians of the area. It's not an uninteresting idea, which, of course, plays off the the puritanical cliche in the slasher films of yore where the most sexually active characters are the most likely to g et killed off. In addition to MASSACRE, West includes nods to FRIDAY THE 13TH, Hooper's EATEN ALIVE and a very specific one to HALLOWEEN. X is set about 5 years after MASSACRE so that it can include a brief exchange about how home video will change the porno industry (adult films were already available on VHS for about 3 years).

The movie is very well directed, with savvy use of cross-cutting between the porn film in the making and the terrors that await the group. Mia Goth (in a dual role; actually a triple if you stay after the credits) and Brittany Snow are the two pornstars to be and each dive in with relish. Kid Cudi is the cocky stud, while Martin Henderson is solid as the confidant Producer. Jenna Ortega is the "crew" all by her lonesome (she manages to keep her clothes on - must have a better agent). Stephen Ure is the ornery old man who rents out his guest house.

As good as the filmmaking is, X ends up feeling too studied. The pacing is lugubrious even if it picks up towards the very end. Once the massacre begins (if not by power tools) it still ends up being fairly typical of the films it's commenting on, regardless of how well executed and 'elevated' it thinks it is. It's also too drawn out to satisfy some gore-hounds and once the blood starts flowing, probably too gross for the internet scribes dreaming of doing extended online essays dissecting it for it's elevated intellect. There are a couple of twists, but they aren't sufficient enough to compensate for the predictability.

In the end, it's not as clever as West thinks it is, and despite some good Directing chops and acting, it's simply too self-conscious to be much of a fun thrill ride.