Since the success of the film The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (Chainsaw Massacre), in 1974, there are countless stories of young urban motorists murdered by bloodthirsty rednecks during an unfortunate rural getaway. Knowing this, and at a time when yet another remake-reboot-sequel to Tobe Hooper’s masterpiece hits Netflix, you’d think the movie X (VF), in view of its summary, will only turn out to be a thousandth rehash. That would be to misunderstand its author, screenwriter, director and editor Ti West.
West first distinguished himself with the excellent The House of the Devilwho brilliantly pastiched the horror cinema of the early 1980s, then with The Innkeepersa haunted hotel tale that looks like a minimalist variation of shining. The filmmaker doesn’t just love horror: he loves the history of horror and how the genre has unfolded on the big screen over time. In the very gory Xreceived with enthusiasm at SXSW, it is obvious right down to the grain of the image.
Set in 1979, the film stages “young urban motorists” isolated in a decrepit farm reminiscent of the one immortalized in 1974. With the difference that they, in a first diversion of cliché, chose to be there, the band having rented the place in order to shoot a porn film there.
This, unbeknownst to Howard and Pearl, the octogenarian owners. When they discover the pot of roses, the old spouses will give free rein to a terrible wrath. However, in another diversion of commonplace, the unbridled sexuality displayed by youth is not punished, but much envied by the masters of the house, who kill less to punish than out of frustration.
In this regard, the third example of diversion, X treats sexuality among young characters with a marked sense of ridicule through the shooting of the porn film. The sex is only really erotic during a love scene between Howard and Pearl.
Underlying playfulness
The redirection of clichés continues down to the order of the victims: contrary to the slashers traditional, which first sacrifice female characters often sexualized without reason, here it is half-naked gentlemen who perish first. The black humor inherent in these passages (this pair of underpants!) is akin to an absurd criticism of the said cliche.
Ultimate Diversion: The iconic Final Survivor (or final girl) does not correspond to either of the two typical versions, either the nice ingenue or the masculinized warrior. That of X could be a spiritual sister of the protagonist of the similarly subversive revengeby Coralie Fargeat.
Embedded here and there, a plethora of homages attest to the playfulness that runs beneath the horrifying surface. Except that West quickly establishes that he won’t be limited to a referential medley or an enterprise of narrative deconstruction. In fact, the homages in question are oblique; the filmmaker does not seem so much to want to show off his cinephilia as to send cinephiles on the wrong track. As for the bias to reverse the diktats dear to the genre, it is part of a larger purpose, X also being a strong intelligent, and never pretentious, film about cinema.
During the scenes detailing the shooting of their butt film, the amateur pornographers refer to Ti West and his team who, with more know-how of course, shoot their horror film beyond the mise en abyme. Moreover, Ti West is not afraid of self-mockery, the director’s character proving to be the most pathetic: you have to see him remonstrate with his girlfriend, who is not too comfortable at the start, arguing that the two actresses are liberated women and that this porn movie is art… until said girlfriend decides on her own to play in the movie. Tasty.
Games of mirrors
However, Ti West’s main interest lies elsewhere. In this case, in the troubled relationship, and for the most part silent, which is woven between Pearl and Maxine. A woman of almost spectral allure, Pearl (to whom West has devoted a forthcoming prequel) develops an obsession with Maxine, an aspiring actress obsessed with fame.
Between these two seemingly antithetical characters, fascinating games of mirrors take place, here thanks to a virtuoso parallel editing, there by resorting to split screens or double focal lengths à la De Palma.
In short, under cover of one of those exercises in nostalgic style of which he has the secret, Ti West once again manages to surprise. With the notable difference that in X, the filmmaker takes a penetrating and satirical look at his own practice. Which makes this vintage his most ambitious and his most successful.