Movie Review: 'X' is One of the Best of 2022 So Far

X takes the idea of aesthetic homage to its best possible place by evoking the look and feel of the best of 1970s horror while not forgetting to tell its own story. X is the story of a group of low level hustlers trying their hand at making low budget pornography. The success of Debbie Does Dallas inspired hundreds of copycats and the characters of X feel that they have a terrific chance for success with their sexy strippers and a ‘talented’ male star.

X stars Martin Henderson as Wayne, a sleazy strip club owner who dreams of multi-million dollar success in the porn industry. Wayne has convinced two of his strippers, including his girlfriend, Maxine (Mia Goth), and Bobby-Lynn (Brittany Snow), to star in the movie along with Bobby-Lynn’s occasional boyfriend, Jackson Hole (Kid Cudi), as the star attraction thanks to his… gifts in bedroom.

Wayne is acting as Producer for the movie, “The Farmer’s Daughters” and has hired a kid right out of film school, R.J (Owen Campbell), to be the director. R.J has brought along his shy young girlfriend, Lorraine (Jenna Ortega), to handle the sound recording, despite Lorraine’s very obvious discomfort with the concept of the movie. Meanwhile, Wayne has secured what he thinks is a perfect location for the shoot. An elderly couple has advertised a fully furnished place in the country that has access to their barn and farm animals for an extra location.

The very old couple will have no idea these young people are filming porn on their land, as far as Wayne is concerned, and they can have the whole movie in the can in under two days if all goes well. Naturally, things do not go well. The elderly couple becomes aware of the surreptitious porn shoot when the elderly wife, who appears to possibly have dementia, wanders over and watches the proceedings. The elderly woman especially takes an interest in Maxine and the two have a bizarre and creepy encounter that sets the tone for what is to come in X.

X is an homage to the grindhouse horror of the 1970s, a gritty, sweaty throwback to The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and the best of the drive-in aesthetic of the day. That said, unlike past efforts of director Ti West, such as his Satanic panic pastiche, The House of the Devil, X doesn’t stop at the homage. There is a twisted beating heart to X which beats with its own twisted purpose and meaning. Where The Texas Chainsaw Massacre was rich with themes regarding the changing landscape of America, X has sex on its mind, desirability, and the grave fear of aging.

While you might assume that X is part of the long tradition of horror movies where sexually active young people are punished for their out of control hormones with a bloody and violent death, X has something even bigger in mind. The young victims of X aren’t punished for their sexual activity, they are hunted for their virility due to a very specific jealousy of their youth and the ability to have sex. The villains of X aren’t prudes, they are elderly and past their sexual primes. They still desire sex but society has deemed them undesirable due to their age.

The deeper theme of X is how the desire for sex, the desire to be desired never really goes away. Something that many of us don’t want to think about is a time when we reach an age where sex is no longer part of our lives. The movie reminds us that regardless of growing old, sexual desires remain, jealousy remains, and the kind of bitterness that one develops from wanting something they seemingly cannot have can curdle into something more dangerous than simple bitterness.

X presents this idea all while director Ti West uses the sex and flesh on display to lure us in so he can scare us with technique, editing, and setting. The film has terrific set pieces, exceptional use of misdirection, and a deep dark sense of humor that makes the more horrific aspects of the movie more bearable. X has twisted sensibilities and if you have similarly twisted sensibilities, you will find X wildly entertaining and genuinely scary.

The idea of getting old scares a lot of people for a lot of reasons. No one wants to die but perhaps an even greater fear than death is the loss of physical abilities. Whether it is the loss of motor functions, memory, or, yes, even sexual capability. Now, imagine reaching an age where your body still works in all the ways you’d like but you are no longer considered desirable and you’ve hit upon part of what drives the emotional agony of the villains of X. That’s a big, bold, and gut-wrenching premise for a horror movie.

X is in theaters nationwide as of March 18th, 2022.