Direction: Ti West
Country: USA
X, the new slasher flick that will give horror fans another good reason to smile, was conceived by American writer and director Ti West (The House of the Devil, 2009; The Innkeepers, 2011; The Sacrament, 2013), who applies his own formula with surprisingly good ideas.
The story, set in 1979 Texas, follows a porn film crew that rents a secluded farmhouse to shoot a low-budget film that is intended to revolutionize the genre. The problem is that the elderly couple that owns the place and lives next door - Howard (Stephen Ure) and Pearl (a completely transformed Mia Goth) - turns out to be as much violent as they are creepy. Everything gets transfigured when the decrepit yet libidinous Pearl, already attracted to the vicious actor Maxine (double role by Mia Goth), witnesses a scene from the movie by peeking through the window.
Endorsing the patterns of several classics but endowing them with unbridled new audacity, this shocker also provides substantial gore. There’s even a fierce crocodile attack that challenges Spielberg’s Jaws. When you enter the theater, you don’t really know where you’re stepping, but you get what you paid for: a viscerally graphic parody that oozes and suppurates.
