Stream It Or Skip It: ‘X’ on VOD, a Nasty, Hilarious Horror-Comedy About Wannabe Porn Stars

A24 ELEVATED HORROR ALERT: X – now on VOD – is the new slashy-slashy movie that has boobs and slaughter AND cagey subtext, so hey, it’s got something for everybody! Fangoria Hall of Fame inductee Ti West (of The House Of The Devil, The Sacrament and Cabin Fever 2 fame) writes and directs this heartwarming tale in which ’70s porno filmmakers set up their f—shop in a remote backwater and end up on the wrong end of knives and shotguns wielded by the types of folk who might disapprove of such things. Up-and-comers Mia Goth (High Life) and Jenna Ortega (Scream) headline this charming endeavor, which is sure to be fun for the whole family, right? You bet!

X: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: Insects crawl through the frame. But they’re not just any insects – these are TEXAS CHAINSAW insects. A cop pulls up to a farm that’s several hundred miles past the middle of nowhere. There’s a lot of blood and a body under a sheet and an ax wedged into the front porch and a TV preacher bleating on the idiot box inside. Cut to 24 HOURS EARLIER, when Maxine (Goth) is cutting coke on a mirror. She takes a snort and drawls to herself in the mirror: “You’re a f—in’ sex symbol.” She’s an “adult film” actress in Houston, Texas. It’s 1979. The shoot? A tender little ditty called The Farmer’s Daughters. I can hear your thoughts now: HELL YES, they’re saying. BRING IT ON. And by IT, we mean YOU KNOW WHAT.

The film our heroes are shooting appears to have a budget in the triple digits – enough to buy a couple six-packs of Schlitz, a loaf of white bread and a roll of bologna on the way to Podunkton, where the cast and crew are going to get out their one shitty camera and fire up the funk, if you know what I mean. (The side of their van reads – hey now – PLOWING SERVICE.) Maxine isn’t the only one with delusions of grandeur. Cinematographer RJ (Owen Campbell) plans to shoot this dirty movie with the eye of an artiste; he tells his girlfriend Lorraine (Ortega), boom-mic operator and film-production noob, that this is their first step to the big time. Actress Bobby-Lynne (Brittany Snow) struts like she has what it takes to be a superstar, and the fella who’ll be railing her and Maxine, Jackson (Kid Cudi), thinks he’s made for this shit, and he’s probably right, considering the impressive nude silhouette of him we see later in the movie. Director Wayne (Martin Henderson) is maybe the only one who isn’t starry-eyed – he’s ahead of the curve for the home-video market, which he believes to be the future of porn.

So their future is bright! They drive past a vile scene in which a steer was splattered by an 18-wheeler, which is what you might call a bad omen. Maxine catches a glimpse of the guts and gags. They pull up to their location and their host is a coughing, wheezing old man named Howard (Stephen Ure) who’s so decrepit he makes coots look like whippersnappers. Of course, he points a shotgun at Wayne before he takes the schtup troop out back to the Civil War-era cabin where they’re going to spend the night. “I don’t like the looks of you,” Howard rasps like he’s got lungs full of dust. Maxine looks up at the farmhouse and sees an ancient woman peering out the window like a specter. That’s Howard’s old lady. She looks like she’d bust a hip if you sneezed in her direction from the next county over. Wonder how this charming senior-citizen couple would feel if they knew these kids were shooting a gol’ durn PORN-O out back? I think we’re about to find out, boy howdy.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: The script references Psycho and Debbie Does Dallas by name; major OG Texas Chain Saw Massacre vibes; and from the Hey Remember That Movie dept., Alligator, which is a delightful surprise; a scudgy-gross indulgently graphic Cabin Fever-ism or two; and The Farmer’s Daughter is easily the worst movie-made-within-a-movie we’ve seen since Dolemite Is My Name.

Performance Worth Watching: Goth transcends the usual Final Girl fodder, the depths of which I won’t discuss further for fear of violating the Constitutional amendment addressing spoiler reveals. So take my word for it: She’s good!

Memorable Dialogue: Bobby-Lynne gets all the gems:

“What about you, Maxine? What’s your American dream?”

“Queer, straight, black, white – it’s all disco. You know why? Because one day, we’re all gonna be too old to f—.”

Sex and Skin: Plenty of T, roughly the same amount of A, men in tiny underwear, sideboob city, the aforementioned silhouette and several instances of hard-R (not X-rated!) porno scrumping that we can’t really see although we can watch other characters as their eyes look at what we can’t look at.

Our Take: COME for the copious amounts of sex and even more copious amounts of gore! STAY for the unexpected sexual dynamic between the ol’ crumbler and his wife – and the unspoken suffering we intuit from her character! To our delight, X hits the tiny spot on the venn diagram of comedy, splatter and thoughtful characterizations, inspiring big guffaws from those of us who don’t know how else to react to gruesome OTT mutilation, and a plenty of contemplation about the existential despair felt by the elderly in the face of virile youth. That’s a pretentious way of saying – without revealing too much – it’s pretty clear the old people in the movie are jealous of the young’uns’ ability to DO IT all the time, and with such gusto.

West also stirs some medium-density culture-war gravy into the stew, pitting conservative fundies against the liberated liberal, uh, liberites. Hypocrisy is a key component, but the inability for the antagonists to acknowledge their own needs through self-reflection isn’t the only thing being slyly lampooned – the porno-biz wannabes exist in a cloud of delusion that they’re special and talented and destined for greatness because they’re willing to have sex on camera, unaware that they’re among, oh, tens of thousands of people who took full advantage of the sexual revolution? Maybe more?

Not that X is hyper-focused on having Something to Say About the World – it’s fair to say West’s goal is provocation, whether it’s through subtextual thematics or relatively subtle post-Scream self-reference: winking nods at the art of filmmaking, equal-opportunity references to classic and trash cinema, subversions of horror-movie gender roles (note that the male characters tend to wander around in their skivvies like idiots, waiting to be killed) or clever fakeouts and jump scares that are finely tuned to inspire laughs or revulsion (or both). It doesn’t fall easily into arthouse or mainstream horror classification traps; it deftly treads the fine line between the two aesthetics, and is all the better for it.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Those of us not ashamed to admit being a bit of a sicko (and maybe a bit of a perv) who enjoys cheeky sex and violence will find X wildly entertaining. And for the cinema aficionado, it’s smartly written and directed.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Read more of his work at johnserbaatlarge.com.