Written by Luke Barnes
Summary
An origin story for everyone’s favourite old lady serial killer.
Honestly I have never been a fan of the films of Ti West often they struggle to appeal to me in anyway, some such as House Of The Devil and The Sacrament have shown promise but by and large I just think he is pretty talentless. X this film’s sequel which was released first only really had a buzz because of its goofy premise a slasher vs a group of porn stars, in actuality and in a technical sense the film is actually quite bland and quite a clear copy of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre at times.
The more art house elements of the first one really struck me as delusions of grandeur, West has always dwelt in the shock value area of horror being gross out rather than cerebral, and though some horror filmmakers can crack both, David Cronenberg he is not. The arty elements of X didn’t work because they just seemed jarring and out of place and here they make a little more sense but you just don’t really care.
I think Mia Goth deserves praise for trying to make this character interesting despite West doing everything he can in a scripting phase to make sure she is just your typical psycho who cracks because their dreams are shattered, how fresh, Joker did this exact same thing much better a good few years ago now. I think at its core that is the issue with these films, it is nothing new and the lofty sense of self that it carries around is unearned.
Overall, Fine nothing new or interesting, but not awful either.
Pros.
Goth
It is watchable
A few nice gory images
Cons.
It thinks it is way deeper and cleverer than it actually
It borrows a lot from better films
It is badly paced
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Another Millennial Reviewer 