‘X’ IS a combination of porn and slasher film that lovers of sex and violence will no doubt enjoy to the max.
It starts with a prologue showing a farmhouse with corpses lying around. This scene of carnage foretells what happens in the movie, which is about a group of young people who are trying to make a porn movie.
The story is set in 1979 and looks like it’s somewhat a homage to Tobe Hooper’s “Texas Chain Saw Massacre” made in 1974.
The porno film being shot is titled “The Farmer’s Daughters” and stars an aspiring porn actress, Maxine Minx (Mia Goth, “Suspiria”), who’s with her producer boyfriend, Wayne Gilroy (Martin Henderson), and co-stars Bobby Lynne (Brittany Snow) and Jackson Hole (Scott Mescudi.)
The film is directed by RJ Nichols (Owen Campbell), who has ludicrous pretensions that he is shooting an arthouse film.
Also with them is RJ’s girlfriend, Lorraine (Jenna Ortega), who is not impressed with the film they’re making.
She later joins the bedscenes, making RJ so jealous.
The film’s location is the Texas farmhouse of an old couple, Howard (Stephen Ure) and Pearl (also played by Mia Goth), and the young people stay at their guest house without saying that it’s a porn film that they’re shooting.
From their own decrepit home, Howard and Pearl watch the young people.
Pearl starts stalking Maxine, inviting her inside their home where she laments her old age and expresses envy for Maxine’s youth and beauty.
She really hits on Maxine but is rebuffed and later on, she sees Maxine having hot sex not with her boyfriend Wayne but with Jackson.
Pearl is so affected by what she sees that she goes to Howard and asks him to also have sex with her.
But he rejects her, saying he has a weak heart that is not ready for sex. When night falls, violence starts to loom its morbid head on the set.
The subsequent crimes of passion and perversion explore different kinds of violent death by gun, pitchfork, ax, knife, death by a live crocodile and being run over by a truck on the head.
Yes, there are bloodbath scenes galore for those who just love graphic violence on screen, some of which are even played for laughs.
Only one character survives the gory massacre and it is revealed in an epilogue that she is the hard-headed daughter of an over-the-top Bible-thumping Christian preacher whose homilies are frequently watched by Howard and Pearl on TV.
“X” is made for voyeuristic viewers of various generations since it’s not only the young characters who are shown having sex but also the oldies.
It is a very dark combination of horror-slasher film and unabashed porn. The female characters here are actually the more aggressive partners as they enjoy watching people having explicit sex then acting on what they see.
Among the stars, Mia Goth gets the juiciest role as she plays two characters, the randy Maxine and the aging Pearl (she wears heavy prosthetic make up) and she really goes for broke in the scenes where she faces off against herself in the same scene.
The film is directed by Ti West, who has directed many horror films before like “The Sacrament”, “The Innkeepers”, “Valley of Violence” and “The Roost”.
He sure knows how to employ shock and scare tactics that will jolt the audience.
But honestly, we don’t sympathize with the characters at all.
They’re all shameless, sinful people who not only do porn but also drugs, and so they do deserve their bloody fate.
