When I visited my best friend for the weekend, I was able to continue my daily horror ritual with her as we watched a long-awaited flick – X!
X is a fantastic modern slasher flick, focusing on a group of young adults filming a porno on a farm owned by a mysterious elderly couple. It looks like the worst “sinners,” as the TV put it, won’t be the actors!
This movie is simply gorgeous. A24 films are always a masterclass in cinematography! The lake scene in particular, wow. I was genuinely disappointed when the film shifted from artsy porn to weird old people sex, as the former was amazingly shot! The lighting, the angles… good stuff!
The parallel between Pearl/Maxine and Howard/Jackson is excellent: to the old couple, the actors are both echoes of their pasts. Maxine is the dancer Pearl once was, and Jackson is the soldier Howard used to be.
Jenna Ortega shows her stuff as the Gen Z scream queen, but this movie is rich in deliciously gory deaths and near misses. X becomes disturbingly dark by its end, turning the elderly couple into two of the most fucked-up people I’ve seen all month, but the payoff is wonderfully satisfying. And it paves the way for a fun, fucked-up franchise!
Gory, twisty, and pure beauty with every shot, X is a marvel. It’s just a shame you can’t go around recommending it to your coworkers or family!
