SXSW 2022 Film Review: X

Combining familiar, 70s grindhouse terror with modern sensibilities, X is director Ti West’s best film since 2009’s House of the Devil. With bloody slasher mayhem unspooling on a porn set, West’s latest slice of brutality brings the nudity and gore, but underneath its vintage horror pastiche lies a sex-positive, beating heart that examines the cutting power of jealousy and the unforgiving cruelty of time. Mia Goth, Brittany Snow, and Jenna Ortega form a new Scream Queen triumvirate. Minor spoilers ahead…