|X (2022): The Slasher That's Also a Masterclass

[Ambrose:] Okay so picture this. 1979. Rural Texas. The sun is going down, it's still a hundred degrees, and there's a van full of people bumping down a dirt road in the middle of absolute nowhere. 

[Ambrose:] And these people — they are not lost. They know exactly where they're going. They've got a plan, they've got equipment, they've got a rented farmhouse lined up, and they are fired up. Excited, even. Because they are about to shoot a movie.

[Jessica:] Wait. A movie?

[Ambrose:] A movie. Technically. An adult film, specifically, for the booming home video market. And I know how that sounds — I know — but just stay with me. 

[Ambrose:] Because here's the thing. These people are not just some random sleazy crew. They actually care about what they're making. The director has opinions. 

[Ambrose:] The producer has a vision. The talent is professional. There's even someone operating a boom mic who is having a whole internal crisis about whether this is morally okay.

[Jessica:] But they do come around eventually, right?

[Ambrose:] Yes they do. But here's what nobody in that van knows. The old couple who owns this farm? The creaky, ancient, barely-moving couple they're about to rent a guest house from? 

[Ambrose:] One of them has been watching through the barn window. And something is cracking open inside her. And by the time this night is over —

[Jessica:] That sheriff is going to show up at the crack of dawn, look at the scene in front of him, and say —

[Ambrose:]“one goddamned fucked up horror picture."

[Jessica:] Which. Yeah. He's not wrong.

[Ambrose:] No, he’s not. And neither are we, because we are here today to talk about Tie West's X, from 2022. 

[Ambrose:] And I want to say up front — this movie got me. Like, REALLY got me. I went in expecting a fun throwback slasher and I came out thinking about it for three days.

[Jessica:] Oh I know exactly what you mean. And I don't want to give away the goodies too early, but the reason this one sticks is not actually the kills. The kills are great, don't get me wrong —

[Ambrose:] Some are incredible —

[Jessica:] But the kills are not why this movie stays with you.

[Ambrose:] No. And we're going to get into why. But first, we need to talk about the director… okay, so if you're not familiar with Tie West, here's a quick version. This guy has been making horror movies since the early 2000s. 

[Ambrose:] He came up through the indie horror scene making these incredibly slow, very deliberate, almost retro-feeling films. Like The House of the Devil in 2009, it was made to look and feel like an early 80s horror movie.

[Ambrose:] You know shot on 16mm, genuinely unsettling, cult classic status pretty much immediately. 

[Ambrose:] And The Innkeepers — that one's quieter, creepier, more character-based. Real slow burn. But then he kind of disappeared from features for like a decade. Did some TV work, made a western. And horror fans were kind of going — okay, what happened? Where'd he go?

[Jessica:] And THEN A-24 came knocking.

[Ambrose:] Yeah, they came knocking. And honestly, if you’re going to come back to horror after a long time away. Well, A-24 is someone you want to come knocking on your door. 

[Ambrose:] Because they are not the studio that goes "great idea, but can we make the killer more relatable and lower the rating to PG-13?” No. They are the studio that goes "how weird do you want to get? Here's the budget, call us when you're done."

[Jessica:] They've built this whole reputation around letting directors actually direct.

[Ambrose:] Which is rare. It sounds like it should be common, but it's rare. And X is. And I think this is the argument we're going to make today — 

[Ambrose:] X is Tie West using every tool he has, and A-24 letting him use all of them. And the result is this thing that works on about four different levels simultaneously.

[Jessica:] It's a slasher. It's a film school argument. It's a meditation on aging and desire. And it's also just — a really fun nasty movie.

[Ambrose:] Yes. And all at the same time. Okay so let's set the table. 2022. This is a pandemic-era production — filmed in early 2021 in New Zealand of all places, 

[Ambrose:] because New Zealand was one of the only places on Earth where you could actually make a film without the whole thing shutting down around you. The US would've been a nightmare. 

[Ambrose:] But New Zealand had basically zero COVID cases at the time, strict bubble protocols, and Ti West actually said in interviews — you cannot make this kind of movie while social distancing. Like, that's not an option for this story.

[Jessica:] Which is funny because the movie they're making inside the movie is very much a no-social-distancing situation.

[Ambrose:] Very much. So they go to New Zealand, they build 1979 Texas from scratch — and I mean that almost literally. 

[Ambrose:] Because production designer Tom Hammock said they constructed most of the major locations. Like the barn, the bunkhouse, And big parts of the farmhouse interior. 

[Ambrose:] On a New Zealand landscape. In the rain and wind and mud.

[Jessica:] And you'd never know it. Everything about this movie feels dry, dusty, and worn-in.

[Ambrose:] Completely. The production design work is insane. They were sourcing period-accurate American props through eBay 

[Ambrose:] because you can't just pop down to the local store and find 1979 Texas gas station stuff in New Zealand. People were apparently ditching personal luggage to travel with suitcases full of props.

[Jessica:] Now, that is dedication.

[Ambrose:] It’s a level of dedication that just shows up on the screen. Okay so… the crew. Let's talk about who's in this van. You've got Wayne, the producer, played by Martin Henderson. He's fast-talking, optimistic, completely willing to cut corners, and he is the one who rented this farm without telling the owners what kind of film they're shooting.

[Jessica:] Which is a really special kind of reckless. Don’t you think?

[Ambrose:] Oh it’s definitely a different kind of reckless. Then you've got Maxine, his much younger girlfriend and the lead performer, played by Mia Goth. And Maxine is ambitious in this very specific, very real way — 

[Ambrose:] she doesn't just want to be in movies, she needs to be a star. It's almost like a survival instinct for her. And then Bobby-Lynne, played by Brittany Snow — 

[Ambrose:] the veteran of the adult film industry, totally confident, completely unapologetic, and honestly one of the best-drawn characters in the whole thing.

[Jessica:] Oh Bobby-Lynne rules. I want to say that clearly. She is one of the most sex-positive, genuinely likable characters in recent horror and the movie does her very dirty.

[Ambrose:] Ooooh It does her SO dirty. And then you've got Jackson Hole, played by Kid Cudi — yes, the musician — and look, when I heard Kid Cudi was in a horror movie I had... concerns.

[Jessica:] Really.

[Ambrose:] Oh yeah some valid concerns. But he's really good? And he plays this laid-back Vietnam vet with this quiet, cool energy and he actually works in the role. 

[Ambrose:] And he plays acoustic guitar in one scene. I think he covers Landslide by Fleetwood Mac, and it's this weirdly tender moment that the movie uses to just gut-punch you later.

[Jessica:] And we can’t forget about RJ and Lorraine. So, RJ is the director, played by Owen Campbell. And he is committed to making this adult film into a French New Wave masterpiece.

[Ambrose:] He is so annoying. He's so specific in his annoying-ness. Like, he's not just pretentious, he's pretentious about pornography. Which is its own kind of achievement.

[Jessica:] And Lorraine is his girlfriend, played by Jenna Ortega, who signed onto this movie while literally filming Scream 5. She got on a Zoom call with Tie West to audition while covered in fake blood on set.

[Ambrose:] And her Scream directors apparently jumped in to say hi to Tie. Like, it was just this very chaotic, very horror-community moment. 

[Ambrose:] And she said it actually helped her performance because her body already knew how to scream and run for her life from muscle memory.

[Jessica:] Now, that’s what I call a very specific kind of method acting.

[Ambrose:] It really is. But okay. So. The crew arrives at this farm. And the farm is owned by Howard and Pearl. And right away — 

[Ambrose:] from the first second Howard opens the door — the vibe is wrong. Not "oh this seems a bit off" wrong. No. Wrong in the way that makes every cell in your body say turn around, get back in the van, and drive.

[Jessica:] And he doesn't even say anything that bad at first. He's just... staring at them.

[Ambrose:] Right. It's the stillness. He's this conservative, buttoned-up, shotgun-on-the-porch type who clearly knows something is off about this group but can't quite prove it yet. And then there's Pearl.

[Jessica:] Oh yeah…Pearl.

[Ambrose:] Pearl. Who is ancient. Like — we're talking hunched, barely moving, skin that looks like it's been left in the sun for forty years. And she doesn't say much at first either. She just watches. And specifically, she watches Maxine.

[Jessica:] And there is something in the way Pearl looks at Maxine that is immediately, deeply uncomfortable. But you can't fully name it yet.

[Ambrose:] Because it's not menacing exactly. It's almost... longing? And that's where the movie starts getting complicated. 

[Ambrose:] Because Pearl sneaks into the barn and watches Maxine perform through a high window. And what's breaking open inside Pearl is not jealousy in the simple sense. 

[Ambrose:] It’s grief. She's grieving a version of herself she can't get back. And she wants [talks slowly] desperately, terrifyingly… what Maxine has.

[Jessica:] And then she goes to Howard. And tries to initiate something. And Howard's heart is too weak. He literally can't.

[Ambrose:] And that rejection… that specific, physical, intimate rejection — is what tips her over the edge. That's the thing that starts the killing. Not greed, not territory, not survival. Desire that has nowhere to go.

[Jessica:] Which is such a specific and sad horror engine.

[Ambrose:] It really is. But okay. So. Now the movie is running. The crew is setting up inside the bunkhouse, the filming is happening, and meanwhile Lorraine — 

[Ambrose:] who came on this trip as the "good girl.” You know, the one who thinks all of this is a bit much. And she is starting to crack. She's watching Bobby-Lynne be completely free and unapologetic and she is having a genuine awakening.

[Jessica:] And that is when she decides she wants to be in the movie.

[Ambrose:] Oh, she demands to be in the movie. And RJ absolutely loses it. Because in his head. This is his art project, right? 

[Ambrose:] And Lorraine being in the movie changes the story. His story. And he tells her that. Basically, you can't just add yourself to someone else's narrative midway through.

[Jessica:] Which is a spectacular line for a guy making a porno to say with complete sincerity.

[Ambrose:] I know right. But here's the thing. The movie is making a real argument there. Because RJ is wrong. And the film knows he's wrong. 

[Ambrose:] He thinks he gets to decide who gets to be sexual, who gets to be seen, whose story is worth telling. And the movie is going to spend the next forty minutes proving to him that he doesn't get to decide any of that.

[Jessica:] And he doesn’t last long after Lorraine’s scene gets shot.

[Ambrose:] He doesn’t. And this is where Pearl comes out of the dark while he’s trying to start the van and just stabs him. 

[Ambrose:] And there’s something about the way this scene plays that’s almost quiet. Like, the movie doesn’t make a huge thing of it. 

[Ambrose:] He made his choices. He packed his bags, and the dark took him.

[Jessica:] And then Wayne goes looking for him. And he wanders into the barn. And I need to talk about Wayne's death because it is one of the most genuinely shocking things in the movie.

[Ambrose:] Oh my god. I was definitely shocked that’s for sure.

[Jessica:] That’s because it just comes out of nowhere. Pearl drives a pitchfork directly through his eyes.

[Ambrose:] And what makes it worse… what makes it so much worse… is the shot they use. And the sound.

[Jessica:] Yeah, It’s really hard to explain the sound to people. Trust us you’ll have to experience it yourself to fully understand that sound.

[Ambrose:] Yeah, you have to be in it. But okay — the kill that the movie has been building toward this whole time — and this is a masterclass in how to use setup and payoff. It’s Bobby-Lynne and the lake. 

[Ambrose:] So let me set the scene for you. So early in the film, Maxine takes a swim. 

[Ambrose:] And there’s this moment where she’s in the water, totally relaxed, no idea, and the camera goes underwater and there is a massive alligator just below her.

[Ambrose:] And she gets out without ever knowing. And the movie lets you sit with that information. Because YOU know the gator is there. Every time someone goes near the water you hold your breath.

[Jessica:] It's the "bomb under the table" thing. Hitchcock talked about this. You don't scare people by showing them the explosion. You scare them by showing them the bomb first, and then making them wait.

[Ambrose:] And Tie West read that textbook cover to cover. Because when it finally pays off… when Bobby-Lynne is out near the lake and that gator takes her. 

[Ambrose:] The release of tension is genuinely spectacular. And by the way, that gator is completely practical. Multiple builds. It’s a puppet version, a fiberglass body on pulleys, a separate tail mechanism. 

[Ambrose:] West basically said it was his Jaws problem. The thing almost broke the production.

[Jessica:] And Brittany Snow said she was physically getting rolled and thrashed by the prop in rehearsals. Hard foam teeth and everything.

[Ambrose:] And as a Florida native she apparently said that dying by alligator was the most accurate possible way she could check out of a movie.

[Jessica:] I can Respect that.

[Ambrose:] Yeah that’s maximum respect. Okay so — Jackson goes looking for Wayne with a flashlight. 

[Ambrose:] And this is where the movie does something genuinely clever. Jackson is a Vietnam vet. He's capable. He's cool under pressure. 

[Ambrose:] You’re watching this scene going — okay, here we go, Jackson's gonna handle this. 

[Ambrose:] And then Howard steps out of the dark with a double-barrel shotgun and just — BOOM! Instantly. No fight. No speech. No moment.

[Jessica:] And the capable person does not get a heroic death. That's a choice.

[Ambrose:] That is absolutely a choice. And it works because it's the opposite of what slashers usually do. 

[Ambrose:] Usually the badass gets a chance to be a badass. West goes — nope. Nobody is safe here and nobody gets to be a movie hero.

[Jessica:] And meanwhile, Lorraine has figured out something is very wrong and Howard tricks her into hiding in the basement. And he Locks the door.

[Ambrose:] Oh this is the best part for me. Because in the basement. Strung from the ceiling there is a rotting corpse.

[Jessica:] Just hanging there. In the dark.

[Ambrose:] And the detail that makes this moment so quietly devastating was earlier in the film, the crew passes a half-submerged Volkswagen Beetle in the swamp. 

[Ambrose:] And the movie never explains it. And then you see this body in the basement, and it all just clicks. Howard and Pearl have been doing this for a long time. And this film crew is not their first.

[Jessica:] They are just the latest.

[Ambrose:] Right. Which means this isn't even a situation that got out of hand. This is just a Tuesday for these people.

[Jessica:] And Lorraine eventually gets out of the basement and makes it to the porch. That is where Howard shoots her.

[Ambrose:] And then there’s Maxine. She’s the last one standing. And the final sequence is…her hiding under the bed. That’s when Howard and Pearl, who have been energized by all of this violence, try to have sex above her.

[Jessica:] Which is one of the strangest and most uncomfortable things I have watched in a horror film in recent memory.

[Ambrose:] It’s so strange. And so uncomfortable. And so intentional. Because Pearl isn't just a killer — she's someone whose entire breakdown has been about not being allowed to want things. 

[Ambrose:] And now she's taking. And Maxine, under that bed, is just trying to survive being the prize in someone else's grief.

[Jessica:] And she gets out. And then the final fight happens. Howard’s heart gives out on him and he dies of a massive heart attack in the middle of trying to kill someone—

[Ambrose:] Which feels almost merciful for him —

[Jessica:] And Pearl grabs a shotgun. And Maxine does the thing.

[Ambrose:] She hot wires the van. Puts it in gear. And drives it directly over Pearl's head.

[Jessica:] Not around. But over.

[Ambrose:] And then she snorts a line of cocaine, and says "Praise the fuckin' Lord," and drives off into the sunrise. And that is the end of the movie.

[Jessica:] Well, kind of.

[Ambrose:] Yeah. Kind of! Because there's a post-credits scene. And if you saw this in theaters — and you stayed — you got absolutely blindsided. 

[Ambrose:] Because what plays after the credits is a full teaser trailer for a movie called Pearl. A prequel. Set in 1918. During the Spanish Flu. 

[Ambrose:] And it was shot in this totally different style — Technicolor, almost Disney-looking, hyper-saturated colors, completely unlike X. And what I read was that the horror community just…lost their minds.

[Jessica:] That’s because Tie West didn't announce it. And the studio didn't announce it. It just existed.

[Ambrose:] They shot it in secret. Back-to-back with X. And while they were in New Zealand. 

[Ambrose:] Tie West and Mia Goth wrote Pearl during a two week Covid quarantine in the hotel they had to sit in before production could even start. 

[Ambrose:] And then immediately after wrapping X, they pivoted and shot the whole prequel on the same farmhouse sets.

[Jessica:] And they only had about a month of prep between the two films.

[Ambrose:] That’s right a month. And for a feature. And Pearl went on to be its own thing entirely. It was almost more of a melodrama than a horror film, Mia Goth completely carried it.

[Ambrose:] And then in 2024 they made Maxxxine, which follows Maxine into the 1980s. She was chasing her Hollywood dream of fame through the slasher-era Los Angeles scene. Three movies. Three different decades.

[Ambrose:] And three completely different visual styles. And all of them where connected. All about women, ambition, and what happens when desire collides with a world that doesn’t want to give you anything.

[Jessica:] And MAXINE ended up being the highest-grossing of the three. Worldwide, about twenty-two million.

[Ambrose:] Which is wild because X itself — made for what the production officially lists as around a million dollars, though people who worked on it have pushed back on that number pretty hard —

[Jessica:] And the New Zealand film commission data suggests the qualifying in-country spend alone was over eleven million New Zealand dollars, so.

[Ambrose:] So the one million figure is probably... generous. But whatever the actual number, X pulled in over fourteen million at the box office. On an indie budget. For an A24 horror film about a porn shoot in 1979 Texas. That is a success by any measure.

[Jessica:] And it sits at a ninety-four percent on Rotten Tomatoes. Which for a gory slasher is genuinely remarkable.

[Ambrose:] That’s because critics were not expecting this. And I think that's worth sitting with for a second. Critics looked at X and expected a throwback slasher with some good gore and not much else. 

[Ambrose:] And what they found was a film that was doing the throwback slasher thing while simultaneously having a full, rich argument happening underneath it. And that gap between expectation and reality is a big part of why it hit so hard.

[Jessica:] Okay so — what is it actually saying? Because we've been circling it and I want to land it.

[Ambrose:] Yeah, let's get into it. But before we do — I want to say one more thing about the cinematography because I think it's criminally underrated in the conversation around this film.

[Jessica:] Oh, the aspect ratio stuff.

[Ambrose:] Yea, the aspect ratio stuff! Okay so — the very first shot of the movie is framed through the open barn doors. And the image is in this old boxy format —one point three seven to one, like classic studio-era film. 

[Ambrose:] And then the camera pushes forward through the doors and the screen just expands into widescreen. It's a physical representation of the movie telling you it's moving from the past into the present. 

[Ambrose:] And then throughout the film, the porno they're actually shooting inside the movie is filmed in a different visual texture — grainier, more constrained, different aspect ratio again. So you always know which "movie" you're watching.

[Jessica:] And the televangelist footage on the TV has its own look too. Everything has its own visual language.

[Ambrose:] And cinematographer Eliot Rockett — who worked with Tie West all the way back on House of the Devil. He talked about wanting the film to feel like it was found in a time capsule. 

[Ambrose:] And they went to absurd lengths to make that happen. They used period-appropriate lighting equipment so the light itself would behave the way it would have behaved in 1979. 

[Ambrose:] Not just filters to make it look vintage. The actual physics of the light was accurate to the time.

[Jessica:] That is an insane level of craft for a movie about a porn shoot that ends with someone getting their head run over.

[Ambrose:] It really is. But that tension — between the sleaze and the craft — is exactly what makes the movie work. Okay. 

[Ambrose:] So, this is what X is really about. And this is the thing that stays with you…a terror about being forgotten. Of being invisible. Of having wanted things your whole life and ending up on the wrong side of the mirror.

[Jessica:] And Pearl is not the villain in the simple sense. She's the warning.

[Ambrose:] Oh, she is definitely the warning here. She is what happens when desire has nowhere to go. And the reason Mia Goth plays both Maxine and Pearl is not a gimmick — it is the entire point. 

[Ambrose:] These two characters are the same person at different stages. Maxine is who Pearl was. And Pearl is who Maxine could become. 

[Ambrose:] And the film keeps reinforcing that visually. There's this moment where Pearl reaches out to touch Maxine's face and their reflections are split by a banister. She can't cross it. 

[Ambrose:] And that barrier between them is age. And the movie treats it like a wall between worlds.

[Jessica:] And we live in a culture that makes that wall very thick and very real for women specifically.

[Ambrose:] Exactly. Pearl isn't monstrous because she wants things. She's monstrous because she's been told for decades that she shouldn't want things anymore. 

[Ambrose:] And that she's past it. That desire in an old woman's body is somehow disgusting. And the movie is holding a mirror up to that judgment. 

[Ambrose:] When the audience flinches at Pearl's sexuality and we do, well, most of us do. The movie is going "yeah. Why is that?"

[Jessica:] Which is also where the film gets a little complicated. Because some critics argued that X is guilty of exactly what it's supposedly critiquing. 

[Jessica:] That by making Pearl's desire the engine of the horror, the film is still treating elderly sexuality as monstrous.

[Ambrose:] And that's a fair read. Like, I don't think that criticism is wrong exactly. 

[Ambrose:] I think the film is genuinely walking a line and it doesn't always stick the landing on both sides of it. 

[Ambrose:] But I come down on the side that the discomfort is intentional and the movie is asking you to notice it.

[Jessica:] I'm slightly more skeptical. But I think it's a debate worth having. And the fact that the movie makes you have it is part of what makes it good.

[Ambrose:] And then there's the other layer — the 1979 setting, which is not random. Because 1979 is this very specific cultural moment where the conservative, puritanical values of the post-war era are running head on into the sexual liberation of what's coming. 

[Ambrose:] And the 80s are around the corner. The world is changing. And the film sets this whole thing against a televangelist preaching on the farmhouse TV — 

[Ambrose:] fire and brimstone, God's wrath, the wages of sin — and it's always on. In the background. Like a Greek chorus of judgment.

[Jessica:] And it turns out that televangelist is Maxine's estranged father. Which recontextualizes everything about her.

[Ambrose:] Right — so her whole journey, this obsessive need to be seen, to be a star, to refuse shame — it's not just ambition. 

[Ambrose:] It’s rebellion. Against a specific person. Against a specific set of rules that were applied to her. And when she crushes Pearl's head and drives away into the sunrise, she's reciting her father's own sermon back at him. 

[Ambrose:] “I will not accept a life I do not deserve." Except she's not saying it as prayer. She's saying it as defiance.

[Jessica:] It's her own divine intervention. On her terms.

[Ambrose:] Exactly. And then there's the whole meta-layer — the movie is literally about making a movie, and the argument between RJ and Wayne is the argument the film industry has been having since forever. 

[Ambrose:] Art versus commerce. Transgression versus product. And Tie West is clearly having some fun putting himself in the middle of that. 

[Ambrose:] He’s making a slasher that's also a French New Wave reference, for A24, about a director who wants to make a porno like a French New Wave film. 

[Ambrose:] It’s recursive in a way that shouldn't work but absolutely does.

[Ambrose:] And it’s very committed. So let’s talk about the survival check.

[Jessica:] Okay that all makes a lot of sense…But, before we do the survival check. Can we first talk about the score for a second? Because I don’t think it gets enough credit.

[Ambrose:] Oh you’re talking about the Tyler Bates and Chelsea Wolfe collaboration. Right?

[Jessica:] I am. And it’s doing so much work. And its weird in the best way.

[Ambrose:] Okay. So, Tie West brought in Tyler Bates — who scored Dawn of the Dead, and also did John Wick — 

[Ambrose:] and Chelsea Wolfe, who is this gothic neo-folk artist who has genuinely suffered from sleep paralysis and night terrors her whole life. 

[Ambrose:] And he told them he wanted the sound to sit somewhere between the atmospheric eeriness of Rosemary's Baby and the sleazy groove of a 1970s adult film.

[Jessica:] Which is—

[Ambrose:] A creepy atmospheric humming and dissonant jazz with funky, dirty wah-wah guitar music! And Chelsea Wolfe apparently channeled her sleep paralysis experiences directly into the score. Her voice is used almost as an instrument — not singing exactly, more like these guttural vocalizations that come from somewhere you don't want to think too hard about.

[Jessica:] And then it'll cut to this funky seventies guitar riff during a kill and that’s when your brain just can't calibrate.

[Ambrose:] And you don't know whether to groove or cover your eyes and honestly the answer is both. 

[Ambrose:] The score is doing the same thing the movie is doing — it's holding two completely different things in one hand and asking you to accept that they belong together.

[Jessica:] This is so true…Okay. NOW survival check. Would you survive this movie?

[Ambrose:] Oh I am absolutely dead.

[Jessica:] Yeah you are.

[Ambrose:] That’s because I'm Wayne. I'm the guy who rents the farmhouse without telling the owners what we're filming and thinks it's going to be fine.

[Jessica:] You’d show up, and you’d be like “the old couple seems chill, the shotgun is probably just decorative to scare away unwanted visitors.

[Ambrose:] And then I'd wander into the barn looking for my director and that would be the end of Ambrose.

[Jessica:] At least Wayne gets a real kill. That pitchfork moment is committed.

[Ambrose:] It is very committed. What about you?

[Jessica:] I think I'm Lorraine. I show up skeptical, I keep my head down, and I stay away from the water —

[Ambrose:] You stay away from the water, yeah that's smart —

[Jessica:] I figure out something is wrong before everyone else does, and then I still die because Howard tricks me into going into the basement.

[Ambrose:] So, the basement gets you.

[Jessica:] Yeah, the basement always gets me. I would absolutely hide in the basement.

[Ambrose:] Wait. Isn’t that the one place you shouldn’t go?

[Jessica:] Well, in my defense, he did locked the door from the outside.

[Ambrose:] Okay that’s fair. So for you listening to this. If you were on that farmhouse shooting a movie. There are just three rules to follow. 

[Ambrose:] Do not go in the basement. Do not go anywhere near the lake, and do not try to leave in the van at night. Follow all three and you just might make it to sunrise.

[Jessica:] What do you mean….Might?

[Ambrose:] Well, your not guaranteed to survive the night. So, you might make it to the sunrise.

[Jessica:] Okay you got a point there.

[Ambrose:] Okay. Your final thoughts. Who is this movie for?

[Jessica:] Honestly? It's for a wider range of people than you'd think. If you want a straight-up slasher with good kills and a mean streak, it's that. 

[Jessica:] If you want something that's going to make you think about what you just watched for the next week, it's also that. And if you want to just watch Mia Goth be absolutely unreal in two completely different roles. 

[Jessica:] And one under six hours of prosthetics — it's one hundred percent that.

[Ambrose:] Oh I agree. The Mia Goth thing is genuinely worth the price of admission alone. Like, this was her first time playing a lead protagonist. 

[Ambrose:] And she’s been in films before, and had a good career, but she’d always been a supporting player. 

[Ambrose:] And she goes from that to this dual role where she’s carrying the entire film on both ends? And pulls it off?

[Jessica:] And then Pearl came out a few months later and she absolutely demolished that one too.

[Ambrose:] Oh she’s operating at a completely different level. And X is where it started. 

[Ambrose:] So if you've been sleeping on this one — maybe you thought the premise was too gimmicky, or the grindhouse aesthetic wasn't your thing — 

[Ambrose:] I want to tell you that this movie has more going on than its poster suggests.

[Jessica:] Oooh it’s a lot more.

[Ambrose:] And yes, it earns its hard R rating. Like, this movie does not flinch. It was named after the old MPAA X-rating for a reason — 

[Ambrose:] that rating in the 1970s was basically a badge of "this film refuses to be polite." And Tie West put that in the title as a promise. A warning. A dare. And the movie keeps every bit of it.

[Jessica:] And I want to come back to the A24 thing for a second. Because X is interesting in the context of what A24 had been doing with horror.

[Ambrose:] Yeah — because up to this point, A24's horror catalog was mostly stand-alone films. Hereditary, Midsommar, The Witch, Lamb — great stuff, but each one is its own contained thing. 

[Ambrose:] And X was the first time they really committed to building a horror world. A franchise in the real sense.

[Jessica:] And it worked because Tie West came in with all three films basically conceptualized. It wasn't "let's make X and if it does well we'll figure out a sequel." He had the whole arc already.

[Ambrose:] Which is so different from how most horror franchises get made. Usually it's — the first one works, so someone writes a sequel in six months and they rush it out before the audience forgets. 

[Ambrose:] And the quality just falls off immediately. Whereas here, West is going — no, I've got a prequel that's a Technicolor melodrama set during the Spanish Flu, 

[Ambrose:] and a sequel that's an 80s slasher set in Hollywood, and they're all connected by theme. By the thing they're saying. Not just by a shared killer or a shared location.

[Jessica:] And it's a trilogy about female ambition across fifty years of American history. That's an actual artistic vision.

[Ambrose:] Wrapped in a lot of blood and a lot of complicated feelings. Which, honestly, is the best possible package for that vision.

[Jessica:] Oh definitely.

[Ambrose:] And that's are take on the movie. So, now let's go somewhere worse and give it our true rating… It's time for the Critic's Crypt.

[Jessica:] It sure is…Lead the way Crypt Boy!

[Ambrose:] Okay. I just want to say — something in here smells like a farmhouse in Texas and I don't like it.

[Jessica:] What are you going to do huh. That’s just the crypt.

[Ambrose:] Well, it smells like hay and bad decisions.

[Jessica:] So it’s the perfect setting for…X?

[Ambrose:] Honestly yeah. This one felt right to discuss somewhere disgusting.

[Jessica:] There's a spider on your shoulder.

[Ambrose:] Of course there is. Whatever, we’re moving on. So X, Ti West’s 2022. Let’s get into it.

[Jessica:] Let's talk about it. And look — I want to start with Mia Goth because if we don't lead with Mia Goth we're doing this wrong.

[Ambrose:] Oh I agree 100%.

[Jessica:] She's playing two roles in this movie and she's terrifying in both of them and somehow completely sympathetic in one of them and it's the same face. Like it's the same person. It's wild.

[Ambrose:] Pearl is one of the most unsettling characters in recent horror and Mia Goth just... she's doing something physical with that performance that I can't fully explain. The way Pearl moves. The way she looks at people. It's like watching someone whose brain is running a slightly different operating system than the rest of us.

[Jessica:] Right, and you feel sorry for her at the same time, which is doing a lot of heavy lifting for a movie where she's also doing extremely terrible things to people.

[Ambrose:] Extremely terrible things. [laughs] Understated.

[Jessica:] I'm being delicate.

[Ambrose:] Okay my big one — and I know this is maybe a weird thing to praise — is the pacing in the first act. Because Ti West is doing something very deliberate there. He is setting a mood. He's letting you sit in the heat and the discomfort and the wrongness of that farmhouse before anything actually happens, and I think that's why the back half lands as hard as it does.

[Jessica:] See — okay, that's actually where I start to have some feelings.

[Ambrose:] Uh oh.

[Jessica:] Not bad feelings! Just... feelings. Because I think the slow build works, and I think Ti West earns most of it. But there are stretches where I'm like — okay buddy, I see what you're doing, you can move it along now.

[Ambrose:] The 70s film grain aesthetic—

[Jessica:] Exactly. That aesthetic is doing some of that heavy lifting. Like it's covering for a couple scenes that are maybe just a touch too long.

[Ambrose:] I'll give you that. There's a conversation by the lake that could lose a minute and nobody would notice.

[Jessica:] Nobody would notice! Just trim it. Anyway. The kills.

[Ambrose:] Right. The KILLS.

[Jessica:] Because when this movie decides to go for it, it goes for it.

[Ambrose:] The lawnmower scene. That's all I'm going to say. The lawnmower scene.

[Jessica:] The lawnmower scene is so satisfying in the most unhinged way. And what I love is it doesn't feel gratuitous — it feels earned. You've been waiting for something to happen and when it happens it's just...

[Ambrose:] Correct, it’s the right amount of unhinged.

[Jessica:] Exactly. Correct amount.

[Ambrose:] Okay but here's my one actual complaint, and this is why I'm not at five coffins — and I want to be honest about this — the side characters. Some of them are really thinly written. Bobby-Lynne gets some great moments, Brittany Snow is having a great time, but Jackson and the director guy kind of flatten out once things get going. They become bodies waiting to happen instead of people.

[Jessica:] That's fair. And I'd add to that — the film within a film stuff is clever, but it doesn't fully pay off the way I wanted it to. Like Ti West sets up this interesting commentary on performance and desire and watching, and then it kind of... drifts away in the third act. It doesn't quite stick the landing thematically.

[Ambrose:] Yes. That's the thing. The ideas are all there and they're interesting ideas but the movie's having so much fun being a slasher that it kind of forgets to close the loop on what it was saying.

[Jessica:] Which is fine! I still had a great time. But it's the gap between "this is a really fun horror movie" and "this is a great horror movie."

[Ambrose:] That's exactly the gap. And for me — this is where we split — I think the things it does brilliantly are brilliant enough that it clears that bar anyway. The Mia Goth dual performance alone is worth the price of admission. Pearl is going to live in my head for a long time.

[Jessica:] She's already living in mine and I don't want her there.

[Ambrose:] She moved in. Changed the locks.

[Jessica:] Alright then. Let’s talk about our ratings for this movie. Where do you stand?

[Ambrose:] Four and a half out of five. And I feel confident about that. The dual Mia Goth performance, the commitment to the 70s aesthetic, the kills, the tone — it's doing something genuinely interesting and mostly pulling it off. Half coffin off for the thin side characters and the thematic thread that drops.

[Jessica:] See I'm at four. Solid, confident four.

[Ambrose:] Ahhh. The split!

[Jessica:] The split. And here's why — I think the slow burn is doing a lot of work that the script should be doing instead. Like, atmosphere is a tool, and Ti West is great at it, but I wanted the characters to earn that pacing more than they did. It's a really good movie. It's not quite a four-and-a-half movie for me.

[Ambrose:] Okay but half a coffin is not a big gap.

[Jessica:] It's not a huge gap. We're both saying this is good and worth your time.

[Ambrose:] We're agreeing!

[Jessica:] We're agreeing that Mia Goth is terrifying and the lawnmower rules and Ti West is doing something interesting even when he's not fully sticking it.

[Ambrose:] And Pearl — the prequel — somehow makes all of this retroactively weirder.

[Jessica:] Don’t even get me started on Pearl right now. We're in a crypt. I have limits.

[Ambrose:] Fair. But, okay. Can we leave?

[Jessica:] What are you talking about? We’ve been trying to leave for ten minutes. I can't just find the stairs.

[Ambrose:] Hmmm. That’s funny, move aside and let me show you how it's done..

[Jessica:] Fine then…do your thing Crypt Boy. Lead on…Lead on.

[Ambrose:] Okay, sooo, we just did X...

[Jessica:] And I need everyone to know that I am not okay. Like, I thought I was going to be okay. I was not okay.

[Ambrose:] Nobody's okay after X. That's just the deal. You sign up, you pay the price.

[Jessica:] The price is too high, Ambrose.

[Ambrose:] It really is. But here's what I keep thinking about — Pearl. Like, the whole time I'm watching this movie I'm going, "wait, what happened to her?" And then they made the prequel and I was like, oh no. Oh no no no.

[Jessica:] Oh no is correct.

[Ambrose:] Anyway — we want to know what you think pairs with this one. Yeah, like what movie would you put with X for a double feature? I mean we have thoughts, but we would love to hear your thoughts on what you think would fit perfectly with X.

[Jessica:] Oh, that’s a good one, Ambrose. So yeah tell us what you would pair up with X in a double Feature on our Facebook page at the thing about films…because, we genuinely want to know what YOU think.

[Ambrose:] Alright, that's it for this week. We're gonna go recover.

[Jessica:] Yes. Separately. In silence.

[Ambrose:] Oh, in complete silence. We’ll catch you next week Bye!

[Jessica:] Byeeee!