X (2022) Review

Originally written April 26, 2024.

How do you feel about the inevitable march of time? If the answer isn’t positive you might be moved by X, but not in a pleasant way you might hope for. Disturbing and uncomfortably relatable in the most exciting and upsetting ways, X carries a message about beauty and aging and a desperate attempt to wrest control of things before it’s too late, if only to feel alive again but for a moment. It’s at its most interesting before any of the traditional horror stuff kicks in, though it is quite a ride once things ramp up dramatically.

X is a story about a group of ambitious young filmmakers who have secured a Texas farmhouse on an elderly couple’s property seemingly for a getaway, but unbeknownst to their hosts they aim to use it as a pornographic film set. This team isn’t making just any pornographic film, however. They’re making pornographic cinema, a distinction delivered earnestly by cameraman RJ. It also serves as a useful excuse for him to keep his girlfriend out of the picture—after all, he can’t suddenly write a new character into the script halfway through filming, can he?—in a wonderful exchange that teases out the group’s feelings about having “fictional” sex with other people.

The other members of the crew fit into well-defined molds—there’s the male star and Vietnam veteran (Kid Cudi), his blonde and excitable counterpart (Brittany Snow), the artistic creative figure (Owen Campbell), the confident rising star (Mia Goth), the executive producing figurehead (Martin Henderson), and, predictably, the quiet “church mouse” (Jenna Ortega) whose alleged prudishness is matched by her increasingly curious mind. Together the cast manifests a palpable and urgent energy, and it fuels their desire to seize life’s pleasures while they’re still young and beautiful. There’s a wonderfully blissful air about this group, such that even when they’re at odds with each other it still feels like all it would take to break the tension is a single “let’s all just relax, man” and it would be back to happy times. And it must be said that it all feels delightfully earnest and well-executed—a scene in which two characters perform a cover of Fleetwood Mac’s ‘Landslide’ would seem way too on the nose if it weren’t for the strength of the script and the performances here. In fact, it’s probably the best moment of the entire film.

What of the elderly couple, Howard and Pearl, that has allowed these characters to take up residence across the field? The husband and wife, played outstandingly well by Stephen Ure and a wickedly make-upped Mia Goth, have such an ominous presence that it’s impossible to feel anything but a cold, creeping dread as they interact with the team. But there’s a wild dynamic that begins to unfold with Pearl in particular, who catches on to all the sex that’s happening on the property and begins to feel utterly, heartbreakingly lonely and unwanted. It’s in these moments, when Pearl’s husband declines her advances, when she brushes her hair in front of a dusty mirror, when she longingly imagines herself as the younger Maxine (Goth) filming an erotic scene, that X is at its best. To witness this character grapple with her own mortality, as if it never quite occurred to her before just how far removed she is from her younger days, is frankly devastating.

Everything culminates in blood and violence—not a spoiler, as the opening scene makes this very clear—and I’m a bit torn on whether or not the slasher bits of the film are made better by the emotional potency leading up to it. For sure, this story does a wonderful job of making you care about everyone involved, a far cry from typical slasher horror which has you actively rooting for everyone’s downfall. But the violence that plays out is so intensely gruesome—and I say this as someone who has a pretty formidable tolerance for gore in fiction—that it threatens to overshadow the very real emotions that precede it. The film manages to not totally lose sight of itself though, with the elderly husband and wife both meeting fates that are so befitting of the story’s themes it’s nearly applause-worthy. It’s just a terrific—and terrifically uneasy—time across the board.