X (2022)
Last Watch Date - October 9, 2026
Total Times Watched - Once
Comments
There was a massive hulabaloo about this movie (and Pearl.. and then Maxxxine). I remember seeing people posting about it in horror forums and hearing about it on horror youtube/podcasts. Given the intense amount of hype on this, I let it simmer for a while to see how it really shook out. Sometimes it takes a few years for people to re-evaluate where it was and give a more reasoned review. I think it's become much more neutral over the years, which is nice to see on a hyped movie like this. I personally try to go in with as little info as possible, so I was able to go in blind more or less.
SPOILERS AHEAD!
I'll just come out and say it: this movie is not very good. The story isn't particularly interesting, nor does it make much sense. The acting is (I think purposefully?) over the top by many people. No one feels real. The elderly couple antagonists are an odd choice for killers. What is more horrifying than a pair of elderly has-beens who get pissed off about people staying at their .. airbnb in 1979? and kill them, then put them in the pond with a single gator that I guess is eating everyone? No one found it odd that people kept going there and disappearing I guess.
I just got really distracted because I have a basketball game on in the background and this one dude's so large he makes the ball look like one of those nerf ones you put on a door.
Anywho, this movie really is not good at building tension because there's not really a good threat. I'm sorry, but I don't buy the old woman pushing a healthy young girl into the water with a big shove. Especially when she later shoots a shotgun and it throws her out of the house, across the porch, and onto the steps where she breaks her leg or hip or whatever. I also don't buy the man being a badass when he dies of a heart attack because a body gurgles as he's moving it.
There has been exactly ONE Ti West movie that I liked. It isn't this!
I appreciate his fondness for old-timey horror, but I don't think he's particularly good at making movies. Clearly the fact that he's made so many proves that I'm in the minority there, but I stand by it.
This TCM-meets-Night of the Living Dead copycat does nothing for me.
Recommended?
No. It's like they saw Texas Chainsaw Massacre and thought "what if instead of the younger family members, it was just Grandpa and Grandma doing the killing?" and mixed it with the slow, plodding zombies of the NOTLD series.