X opens at the scene of a grisly crime with a cute framing trick that makes it seem as though the film uses the Academy ratio of 1.375:1. This is just one of many references to film and film history, some overt and others not so much, and the film as a whole is a bit of a love letter to the filmmaking process. (It manages to throw in some horror and entertainment, too.)
Wayne (Martin Henderson) is a producer and star, his younger girlfriend Maxine (Mia Goth) is his girlfriend and co-star, and Bobby-Lynne and Jackson Hole (Brittany Snow and Kid Cudi) feature alongside them in what is going to be a porno. The director, RJ (Owen Campbell), enlists the help of his girlfriend Lorraine (Jenna Ortega) to make what he believes will be a “good” porno, something with artistic integrity that goes beyond mere smut. The location for the shooting of this pornographic film is a cabin owned by a creepy elderly couple whose home (which is a very short distance from the cabin) was the setting of the grisly massacre we get a sneak preview of in the opening scene. It is obvious from the beginning, then, that several people are going to die.
It would have been obvious without the opening scene, mind you, considering X is a horror film. If you didn’t know that, the repeated references and tributes to horror films would be enough to clue you in pretty quickly. The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974) is one of the most obvious influences, with both films featuring a group of friends travelling across the US in a van and eventually being picked off one by one in a rural area. When director RJ’s girlfriend decides she wants to be in the film, RJ objects, suggesting that it wouldn’t work if he suddenly introduced a new character halfway through. The rest of the group point to Psycho (1960) as an example of why he is wrong about that, and he continues to object, claiming that they aren’t making a horror movie, and that it is different. Of course, they might not be filming one, but they are starring in one whether they know it or not. It’s another line that feels like a wink to the audience and a cheeky meta reference to filmmaking.
When the horror parts really get going, it gets pretty wild. The reason people end up getting slaughtered is one of the more bizarre and creepy reasons you will have seen in a horror film before, but it works very well, especially considering what the group are up to in that cabin. Unfortunately, the film's biggest issue is that it goes exactly how you expect it to. It’s fine that we know people will die – it is a horror film after all – but if anything that should work to add more tension as we wait for the characters’ untimely deaths. There’s a surprising lack of tension in X, and towards the end it feels like the film is just going through the motions of what horror films are meant to do without adding anything that makes the classics like The Texas Chain Saw Massacre great in the first place. The themes aren’t fleshed out enough and it falls a little flat in the end.
Still, it is an entertaining ride, and while it doesn’t really hold a candle to the many classic horror films it references, it is certainly worth a watch, especially if you’re a fan of the genre.
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