#Why X is the Perfect Modern Horror Movie
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“Why X is the Perfect Modern Horror Movie”
It’s probably fair to say that 2021 was not the best year in terms of cinema (or, for that matter, the best year in any other category). Sian Heder’s independent flick Coda earned Best Picture at the recent Academy Awards. Though this heart-warming drama was more deserving than certain other Best Picture winners of recent note, one cannot help but feel that the films of 2021, especially in the face of a particularly dour year, lacked an important element: fun.
Well, our wait is over. Movies are back, and they’re back in a big way. The return of fun flicks is perhaps best exemplified by the recently released X. The film boasts an impressive cast, including Mia Goth (A Cure for Wellness, Suspiria), Jenna Ortega (Insidious: Chapter 2, Iron Man 3), Martin Henderson (Grey’s Anatomy, The Ring), Scott Mescudi (Man on the Moon: The End of Day, Bill & Ted Face the Music), better known by his stage name Kid Cudi, and Brittany Snow (John Tucker Must Die, Pitch Perfect), who all put in impressive turns as the cast and crew on a low-budget adult film production. The cast is led by veteran horror director Ti West (The House of the Devil, In the Valley of Violence) in his long-awaited return to silver screen slashers.
In the film, an adult film production hits a few roadblocks in the form of a gruesome geriatric, and audiences around the world watch the ensuing carnage with bated breath. More importantly, X supplements its steady flow of blood and viscera with a fair share of laughs and essential themes regarding beauty and mortality. All in all, 2022’s X is the perfect springtime romp and should give audiences hope for the cinematic summer to come.
Horrific Homages
It can be difficult to watch a lot of modern horror movies. After even a few years of habitual movie viewing, one is intimately acquainted with tropes of the genre. A jump scare here, the minor tone screech of a solitary stringer instrument, a silhouette slipping through the unfocused background; we’ve seen it all before. A large part of X’s brilliance lies in its acceptance of this fact. Director Ti West knows we’ve seen it all before; he’s done it all before, and he acknowledges this with a slew of clever homages to films of horror past.
We see, for example, our protagonists staying in a shack adjacent to the elderly villain’s home, which leads to shots reminiscent of Psycho (1960), the looming home serving as a spiritual harbinger of the horror to come. The killer herself could be thought of as analogous to Norman Bates’ deceased mother, embarking on her own campaign of violence. When Mia Goth’s character, Maxine Minx, goes for a dip in a nearby pond, she is pursued silently by a ravenous gator. The overhead shot of the stalker and oblivious stalkee is an apparent reference to Jaws (1975).
Thrilling Themes
Though recent years have been something of a Renaissance in the field of heady horror films, having ghouls and goblins as stand-ins for societal ills is far from a new phenomenon. How could one ignore George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead (1968), perhaps the genesis of the modern zombie craze, and how the film’s climax sees an innocent black man shot by the very folks, here a vigilante militia of zombie hunters, meant to save him? While all credit is due to Jordan Peele and his 2017 masterpiece Get Out for its clever examination of Blackness in modern America, the horror genre has always been rife with boundary-pushing challenges to social norms.
X is undeniably of this school. Rather than examining racial prejudices, the film turns its lens onto another inextricable prejudice of modern society: ageism. Our villain, a former dancer, is deeply envious of the fresh-faced, nubile cast of adult stars that come to roost in her guest home. Trapped in a body stripped of its former beauty, her envy turns to murderous rage. However, the audience cannot help but squeeze a few moments of sympathy from her deadly dealings. At the end of the day, she wants to be appreciated for her beauty, and time has made that an impossibility. The real monster is our own decaying forms, and that’s why X is so bloody horrifying.
X made us jump, gasp, cry, laugh, and think. There aren’t many other emotions a movie can elicit. After several years that saw our lives put on hold, mortality, and the inevitability of aging, have never been more relevant thematically. To witness the extremes of beauty and death, hop in your retro van and speed to the nearest theater. Time is running out.
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