Ti West’s new film evokes an era, the 70s, like ‘Licorice Pizza’, but in terms of terror. She’s old on purpose and looks great
The latest proposal from Ti West, a filmmaker always in the spotlight of horror fans – ever since he premiered ‘The House of the Devil’ – begins with an image worthy of Instagram, treated with a vintage filter. The freeze frame of a rural postcard is shown in a square format, as in the popular application, thanks to the arrangement of the frame taking advantage of the door frame inside a shed. This “Fordian” resource serves to introduce the viewer to a world that evokes the genre cinema of the 70s from its own aesthetic.
The camera moves slowly to the outside and we enter the present, although it is another era that is represented, suitably staged. ‘X’, a forceful title, proposes a meeting between Linda Lovelace and ‘The Texas Chainsaw Massacre’, as if classics of the cinema of yesteryear classified ‘S’, along the lines of ‘Deep Throat’ or ‘The Devil in Miss Jones ‘, resulted in a slasher care with care to offer an attractive look for the current public. The excuse is the arrival of a group of naive young people -three peculiar couples-, determined to shoot a pornographic film, at a guest house lost in the countryside. It may not be the most suitable place. The farm owners who rent the secluded wooden house in the countryside have little idea what’s brewing a few feet from their home sweet home. Perhaps the visit will not please them. Perhaps it awakens hidden instincts.
‘X’, written and directed by West, more than struggling on television behind the camera by participating in the making of series such as ‘Them’ or ‘Stories of the loop’, does not hide the condition of exercise in style of his latest work. Rather, he squeezes the idea to the fullest, in line with his irregular filmography, in which he has previously paid homage to 80s horror films. Here he finally succeeds in refining the aesthetic tics of an era, avoiding a tone of extreme artificiality. Beautiful, enveloping terror, portrayed with precise frames that highlight the growing paranoia that contaminates the viewer while watching the protagonists fall into a spiral of unexpected violence.
Brittany Snow in ‘X’.
The film introduces restlessness little by little, through beautiful scenes of deep America, with the poetic use of music and a good use of zoom as in the 70s, when it was still believed that it was possible to shoot a quality porn movie. film, long before Pornhub existed and monopolized a controversial market. A certain state of uncertainty takes over the footage, with a suggestive atmosphere. While the protagonists shoot the film for adults (two strippers, a Vietnam veteran, a horny producer, a pedantic film director and his innocent girlfriend), the mystery invades the environment in parallel, with a clever use of montage. Topics of X cinema and horror cinema itself merge to the delight of the viewer free from prejudice, a lover of crossing genres in search of new ways of expression.
Behind ‘X’ is A24, an acclaimed American production company that has become a hallmark of quality for defenders of the ‘cult’ label. They appear in the credits of ‘Midsommar’, ‘The VVitch’ or ‘The Florida Project’. The beautiful retro visuals of ‘X’, whose sound design is treated in such a way as to recall the past, in keeping with the soundtrack, costumes, art and effects, perfectly match the catalog of this successful company.
Extremely stylish, apart from offering nudity and glorifying scenes typical of the genre, the film talks about sensuality and passion, how they can turn into something unhealthy, the inevitable passage of time and how desire is twinned with death when a knife stuck in a body in rage reminds of a sexual act. There are no shortage of sharp phallic elements or an ending in keeping with the great classics of cinephile horror in this insinuating bet starring Jenna Ortega (‘Scream’), Brittany Snow (‘Pitch Perfect’), Martin Henderson (‘Everest’), Kid Cudi ( ‘Don’t look up’) and Mia Goth (‘The devil at all hours’).
#vintage #horror