It’s perhaps one of those ideas that no one immediately realizes is brilliant because it’s so simple: to make aging—and the fear of it—the key antagonist in a horror movie. That’s the crux of what Ti West has done with X, soon to be known as the companion piece to its prequel, Pearl. While some would characterize it as part of the “psycho-biddy” subgenre of horror (most classically exemplified by What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?), X goes much deeper than that in terms of exploring a topic that continues to remain extremely taboo in every society: elderly women being sexual. More “scandalous” still, wanting to be sexual past “a certain age.”
In Hollywood, of course, the word “elderly” is slapped on any woman over twenty-five. Which is why a small-town girl like Maxine Minx (Mia Goth) is eager to become famous as quickly as possible before it’s “too late.” Overtly influenced by The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, West thusly commences X with a group of people who set out in a van to make a movie on an isolated farm. Not just any movie, mind you, but a “dirty” one. Because, again, Max is willing to become famous no matter what it takes. And with her boyfriend/executive producer of the movie, Wayne Gilroy (Martin Henderson, a long way from Bride & Prejudice), determined to capitalize on the still germinal “home movie market,” he just knows that Max has that “X factor” (the title adds up now, don’t it?) to make something big happen. And, speaking of big, Max’s co-star includes Jackson Hole (Scott Mescudi), along for the “ride” of his life when (in the movie-within-the-movie) he stumbles upon not one farmer’s daughter, but two after his car breaks down nearby.
Naturally, he’s the lone male cast in a script called, what else, The Farmer’s Daughter, which also applies to Bobby-Lynne (Brittany Snow), the requisite big-titted blonde of the operation. The only other people to accompany the “cast” are director/glorified cameraman RJ (Owen Campbell) and his girlfriend/boom mic operator, Lorraine (Jenna Ortega, gradually securing a place among the ranks of go-to Gen Z actresses). The latter mirrors the simultaneous skittishness and morbid curiosity displayed toward sex that gets interwoven throughout the film. To accent that uniquely American dichotomy, the audience sees the same televangelist prattling on about the sinful ways of modern society, played on every TV that the crew seems to encounter along the way. This being just another cinematic device that proves the film being set in 1979 is central to every aspect of the plot, for it was a time in U.S. history when not only was Christianity becoming monetizable in new, exploitative ways (see also: Jim Bakker), it was also a time of financial desperation, with the Carter administration seeing the rise of stagflation.
Hence, it’s no surprise that not only should more and more people turn to “God” and blame the “vice” of Hollywood Babylon (including the porn industry) for everything without knowing what else to do, but that they should also come up with ways to “hustle” as a means to get some extra cash. In Wayne and Max’s case, the “riches” will come once the film is distributed; in Howard’s (Stephen Ure), the old man who rents them out his guest house without being aware of what they’re doing in it, the extra money is as good as his once they arrive.
West’s creative decision to embed the religious pervasiveness of televangelism within the narrative is designed to speak not only to the puritanical nature of America (particularly at that time), but the specifically “God-fearin’”/sex-is-for-whores rhetoric of Texans. Being that Max and company have come from that “big city” of filth, Houston, it’s apparent to Howard, who has decided to rent out the aforementioned rural guest house, that they’re going to “disturb” his wife. Of course, the more accurate word is “arouse.”
Pearl (also played by Mia Goth) is, indeed, immediately “intrigued,” to say the least. Recognizing something of herself (obviously) in Max, she essentially “lures” her into the main house by way of sparking her curiosity with odd, erratic behavior. Once Max is inside, Pearl then creeps up on her, like a moth to a flame, offering some lemonade at the same time we cross-cut to a similar scene happening in the porno plot that’s being filmed between Bobby-Lynne and Jackson.
Unabashed about her covetous attraction to Max, Pearl tells her that she was once just as beautiful, too. So much that the men in her life would have done anything for her. She says it so wistfully, so longingly that we know she’s more than just a woman who yearns for her past and the beauty she possessed. She wishes to once again have the power it wielded. As a result, her sexual advances toward Max don’t seem to be about “swinging both ways,” so much as an intense desire to “possess” the beauty of others simply by being close to them, touching them. As though some of it might miraculously rub off on her. Needless to say, it does not, only serving to gross Max out to no end. Here, too, we see the core of the film’s message as holding a mirror of young women up to themselves to show that they’re also part of the misogyny-based problem in terms of regarding old women as “discards” to be avoided. Mainly because it provides a “grim” glimpse into their own sexless future.
It’s no wonder that women like Nicole Kidman (who just showed off a ripped body on the cover of the appropriately titled Perfect magazine to prove her continued aesthetic worth) and Madonna refuse to show any signs of being “old” (though Madonna has some blatant help from photo retouching). Accordingly, there is undeniable resonance to X’s overarching motif about women in our society fearing age more than anything because it means becoming worse than invisible—pitied. Looked upon as some sad, pathetic husk still trying to “get it.” And yes, Madonna parading her manifold coterie of boy toys does speak to something in the plot of X. That a woman, no matter how old she is, doesn’t “dry up” just because she’s “supposed to.” Evidently making way for the latest batch of fresh snatch to come (ironically, Madonna, Jennifer Grey and Sandra Bernhard once jokingly referred to themselves as the Snatch Batch).
Being desired, for a woman, has always been a key aspect of her ability to feel seen and “loved”—indoctrinated as women are from an early age to believe that the reaction one gets to their looks equates with genuine affection. Maybe that’s why Bobby-Lynne and Max walk around wearing next to nothing, or why, all of the sudden, Lorraine wants to take her clothes off and be in the movie as well. A curveball that prompts Wayne to inform a distressed RJ that there’s no such thing as “nice girls.” Because it’s never “nice,” in a man’s eyes, for a woman to actually want to relish and delight in her own sexuality.
And yet, it’s not nice for some fellow women to observe either. For example, there’s a moment toward the third act when Pearl expresses absolute jealous rage toward Bobby-Lynne for flashing all the supple aspects of her youthful body at her like it’s nothing. This is, on some level, a phenomenon that younger women do “secretly” seem to get off on. Taunting older women with their youth. As though to say, “It’s my turn now, bitch.” Just another part of the inherently competitive streak that women have with one another, on a primal level.
As we watch the proverbial battle between old and young ramp up, it’s like witnessing a grand metaphor for the cycle of life that women in particular must contend with. For at least men, even when they become “old dogs,” are never expected to learn new tricks. Instead, younger women anticipate them to be even more perverted and grotesque than when they were younger. Whereas older women are supposed to be staid, dignified—proper. Never letting on that, at one’s core, wet ass pussy never dies… and there’s no notion more “X”-rated than that.
In this regard, for those fewer audience members with gerontophiliac predilections (à la Bud Cort in Harold and Maude), this movie may very well come across as a right proper “romp” rather than a horror show.
