‘X’ Review: Ti West Channels A Winking ‘Texas Chain Saw Massacre’ Horror In The World Of Scuzzy ’70s Porn

It’s a little surprising that “X” marks director Ti West’s first film for A24 since his approach to horror — emphasizing character and mood over jump scares, building slowly and steadily to a big bloody blowout — is so synced up with their house style. “X” is also his first feature since 2016, and his first horror film since 2013’s “The Sacrament”; he’s kept busy in the years since with plenty of television work, but this is what he does best, and it’s about time he got back to it. A24 making it happen sort of feels like when Netflix signed Errol Morris for “Wormwood” – like the least they can do, all things considered.

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The premise is beautiful in its simplicity and efficiency. It’s 1979, and a motley crew of exotic dancers and DIY pornographers is shipping out from Houston to the backwoods of Texas. Wayne (Martin Henderson) is the producer and mastermind, Maxine (Mia Goth) and Bobby-Lynne (Brittany Snow) are dancers at Wayne’s strip club in Houston, Jackson Hole (Scott “Kid Cudi” Mescudi) is their male lead, and R.J. (Owen Campbell) is the writer, director, cinematographer, and editor; he’s brought along his girlfriend Lorraine (Jenna Ortega) to do sound. Wayne’s rented a broken-down boarding house on a remote piece of farmland, and they’ll shoot their little X-rated movie, “The Farmer’s Daughters” there; the ancient couple who lives in the farmhouse won’t even know what they’re up to. Or so they think.

West wears his influences on his sleeve, deliberately invoking the visual language of “The Texas Chain Saw Massacre” (especially during the early, on-the-road scenes in their van), as well as the long zooms and creepy score that recall “Let’s Scare Jessica to Death.” Of course, the grainy, middle-of-nowhere aesthetic is the stuff of hundreds of early ‘80s slashers, but as per usual with this patient filmmaker, the blood doesn’t really flow until the third act. Until then, he slowly builds to a steady boil; as mysterious figures peek through windows and hide in hallways, West takes his time framing artful compositions, filling the soundtrack with buzzing flies, and building an atmosphere of unnerving dread. For a while, there’s some question as to where exactly he’s going. And then it becomes very clear indeed.

With its shout-outs to horror classics and juicy pay-offs of its own, “X” feels like the movie West was born to make. He fills it with great little jokes, cheap and otherwise, from their van reading “PLOWING SERVICES” on the side to the broad wink of “Don’t Fear the Reaper” blasting through the van’s radio. The picture’s most personal humor comes from the charming idealism and naïvete of junior filmmaker R.J., who insists “It is possible to make a good dirty movie,” and tells anyone who’ll listen that he plans to class the movie up with some “avant-garde” editing – and then, of course, West fills his film with “Easy Rider”-style stutter cuts.

That kind of playful filmmaking flows through the picture: the full-screen wipes, the clever things he’s doing in the split-screen sequence, a shock scare that ends one scene, then resumes after the entire other scene plays out. And without giving anything away, there’s an extremely high and wide shot of Maxine swimming in a lake until, well… yeah, you’ll just have to see.

But this formal ingenuity isn’t just showing off. In one clever sequence, he intercuts a “real” scary movie set-up with a similar, “fictitious” porn one, underlining the thin line between horror and erotica, between being terrified and being turned on. That connection is underscored by the later, none-too-subtle parallels between gushing blood and cumshots, between the ecstasy of an orgasm and the bloodlust of a kill.

West does occasionally fumble. The framing device seems less necessary the more you think about it, and “X” does, unfortunately, continue this weird strain in contemporary horror (particularly in A24 releases) where the scariest thing imaginable is a naked senior citizen. You’re all going to get old and gross, hot twentysomethings; get used to it!

But these are minor complaints. The cast is wonderfully down for whatever; Goth makes a charismatic protagonist, Cudi has movie-star swagger, Snow is having a blast playing a bad girl, and Ortega has one hell of a good scream. She displayed it earlier this year in, haha, the new “Scream,” but I far prefer this flavor of post-modern horror, which makes its references and bonds with its audience in images and moments rather than sub-Williamson dialogue. The scares in “X” are, nearly every time, created with our participation; he’ll use his camera, his actors, and his props to set it up in plain sight, and make you wait for him to deliver. And wait. And wait. And then he clobbers you. [B+]

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