“The story can’t just change midway through,” exclaims a pretentious adult film director incredulously in X. It certainly can in a Ti West horror film, where one of the joys is often the shift from the methodical pace of the opening to the blood-drenched mania of the finale. Set in 1979, X finds a group of ambitious but inexperienced filmmakers heading to a remote Texas farm with dreams of making the next Debbie Does Dallas. However, the troupe fails to inform their hosts – an elderly couple who rent the crew their bunkhouse – about the purpose of their visit, […]
by Matt Mulcahey on Apr 21, 2022After 2016’s Western, In the Valley of Violence, and several years directing episodic TV, Ti West (The House of the Devil, The Inkeepers, The Sacrament) makes a very welcome return to the world of feature horror with X, a ’70s-set picture in which the sort of ambition that has characterized West’s impressive filmography is both evident on screen as well as the subtext driving the film’s characters. The set-up: a ragtag group of filmmakers ensconce themselves in a rented barn outside a foreboding farmhouse straight out of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre to make a porno feature, The Farmer’s Daughter. Mia […]
by Scott Macaulay on Mar 14, 2022