Recently, we’ve seen the emergence of the sub-genre that is affectionately known as “elevated horror”, which is precisely what the name suggests – attempts to take one of the most popular genres in the history of cinema and infuse it with layers of deeper meanings and poignant allusions to reality that somehow gives it artistic resonance. For the most parts, these are usually quite good and have a lot of potential, even when they are at their most divisive. However, there are some that perhaps take advantage of this trend, which leads us to wonder whether or not it would be worthwhile for the horror genre to slowly de-escalate for a while. X is not a good film, and many attempts to justify its stodgy execution, aimless plot or overall weakness as a piece of narrative or conceptual storytelling fall flat the moment we are asked to find something original anywhere in this film. Ti West is not a filmmaker that lacks talent, with many of his previous works being excellent and indicative of his inherent talents as one of our great masters of visceral, brutalist cinema. X is not at all representative of the skills he has so carefully honed over the past two decades as he has slowly ascended to the position of one of our more promising voices in modern horror. If anything, it feels like a total regression, the kind of formulaic attempt at being revolutionary that we find from amateurs, who believe that what they are making is subversive, when in reality it is almost totally pretentious at best. There are few cinematic experiences less compelling than that of a self-indulgent horror film that trades depth for audacity, and West proves throughout X that there is sometimes merit in trying to avoid being overly ambitious, especially when dealing with material that is far from ideal.

Horror has evolved to a place where we see an abundance of interaction between different genres, with the crossover appeal of elevated horror allowing filmmakers to create stories that may be rooted in terror, but touch on themes common in romance, melodrama and comedy, while still retaining its place as primarily a work that aims to scare the viewer. However, in order to achieve that, a film needs to have some depth – and not only does X feel truly shallow, but it also doesn’t know how to assimilate its ambitious ideas into a narrative that was already too paltry to justify even a single flirtation with other genres. In the most simple terms, X is a film that does not know what it wants to be, and its frequent experiments to try and answer this question are never developed to the point where they actually harbour any meaning. There are some parts of this film where it seems to be actively contradicting itself (not in the kind of subversive, postmodern way, but rather in terms of how it is just the subject of poor writing and even worse execution), and it can be a truly frustrating experience, especially when it seems to be interested in expanding on its themes by touching on other genres, but stops just short of actually doing so, which can lead to a deeply oxymoronic film. It’s a horror film that does not want to scare its viewer, and a comedy that takes itself far too seriously. It is hardly surprising that X has not done much in terms of registering with audiences, who may have been partially entertained by the specific function of the film, but never actually willing to surrender to its deceptive charms in the way that a much better horror film may emphasize, one of the many unfortunate issues that underpin this middling film.

Even just as a horror, X feels like a bundle of missed opportunities. In most cases, a film with this subject matter would be fine to take a few risks (such as in the few voyages to the absurdist comedy that gives some parts of the film their distinctive tone – although not always for the best), since at least it could technically lean into its primary task of being a strong horror film more than anything else. The inherent problem here is that X is equally as bad at being a horror as it is at every other genre, since it frequently goes against the very principles of the genre as a whole. Naturally, a film that breaks rules is often cause for celebration, and there are a few moments here where it feels like West is approaching something quite promising. However, it all becomes nearly pointless when we see exactly how it even struggles to be a traditional horror film. It’s a slasher film in which the first murder happens an hour into the film, a psychological horror in which we are never given a single moment to look at these characters as anything more than as thinly-constructed archetypes, and a rural horror that feels far more urbane and slick than many films actually set in the city. Somehow, X aims to be an effective and multi-layered horror that pays homage to many other compelling horror films, but fails to even make the slightest amount of effort to be the pastiche it is aiming to be. This is not the tribute to the great slasher films of the past, nor is it anywhere close to the myriad of comparisons it has had to some true classics of the genre, ultimately just being a muddled mess of a film.

Unfortunately, in much the same way that the execution may be somewhat poor, the acting is not much better. Very few of these actors are actively bad (and all of them have had professional experience prior to signing up for this film), but they’re not very good either, which resounds more loudly than perhaps anything else in the film. Unfortunately, no one knew what kind of film they were making, and pitched their performance to such an appropriate level depending on their interpretation of how a scene would be played. This is why we have people like Brittany Snow and Martin Henderson who seem to think they were in a comedy, while Mia Goth and Jenna Ortega made it clear that they were aiming for the rafters in terms of the off-the-wall horror performance. Rather than drawing on these individual strengths, a better film would take these raw performances and streamline them into something that actually worked, rather than just allowing half a dozen actors to give their own interpretations of the characters that surround the film. The lack of a single good performance radically detracts from the overall experience, and causes X to be even less effective, since the characterization (which is absolutely vital in even the most experimental horror films – without effective heroes and villains, a horror film can rarely be successful) is woefully underdeveloped, and simply leads to a poorly-conceived horror film that seems far more interested in the concept more than it is actually seeing it through to a point that feels genuine and fascinating, rather than just being constructed from a few dozen disjointed scenes with some moments of unhinged violence peppered in for further inexplicability.

By the end of X, there isn’t much that can be salvaged. It is a well-made film insofar as it has some interesting imagery and the practical effects prove that there is continued merit in the more brick-and-mortar approach to evoking horror – but outside of these relatively minor merits, there is a virtual lack of compelling evidence that this is anything nearly as major as it seems to think it is. There is some potential here, with the concept of a slasher film produced around the pornography industry being interesting enough to pique our curiosity – but this is quickly quashed when we realize it takes over an hour to even get to the natural start of the conflict (the most vital component of a good work of horror), after which it compresses all the action into a single 35-minute stretch that feels not only rushed, but unquestionably underdeveloped, which is absolutely fatal to a film clearly trying to establish itself as a mood piece. X is just a dreadful example of how experimental horror is not always worthy of analysis and discussion – some of them just breeze through without remaining stagnant for too long, which would be otherwise fine for a debut or a work by someone just recently entering the industry, not from someone who has been one of the cornerstones of contemporary horror. It’s just a dismal experience, and what little traces of promise it has are destroyed by the fact that it is an overlong, illogical and badly-paced horror that lacks a good story, and is entirely void of a satisfying conclusion, turning into a true ordeal of a film, and one that just does not work beyond a few moments where it seems to be approaching something close to a good story, but which immediately falls apart once we realize the unquestionably shallow details that fuel this bizarre excuse for a horror film.