‘X’ Film Review: Ti West Pays Homage to 70s Sleaze in Stylish Slasher

much of a movie, but it’s a movie nonetheless.Leto does indeed star as Michael Morbius, a world-renowned physician — talented enough to invent an artificial blood substitute, iconoclastic enough to turn down the Nobel Prize he won for the invention — who has grappled with blood-borne disease since childhood. With the financial support of lifelong friend and fellow patient Milo (Matt Smith), Michael has become a leader in his field, even as he branches out into morally questionable territory, exploring the possibility of grafting vampire-bat DNA with human DNA.Like “The Wasp Woman” and countless other cinematic mad scientists who tampered in God’s domain, Michael tries the experiment on himself, discovering both a cure (he’s strong, buff and can hang from the ceiling) and a curse (he transforms into a fanged creature starved for human blood).

Phil Connell’s Jump, Darling (★★★☆☆) is perhaps most notable for featuring one of the last performances of Cloris Leachman’s career.The legendary actress, who passed away at the age of 94 in January 2021, offers a quietly profound, poignant look at Margaret, an elderly woman for whom life no longer has a discernible point. Lonely and isolated in her spacious home in Prince Edward, Canada, Margaret is more than ready to leave these corporeal confines for what lies beyond.When her 30-year-old grandson Russell (Thomas Duplessie) arrives on her doorstep, following a breakup with his boyfriend (the narrative’s weakest storyline), she finds temporary reprieve from her pain.Russell, however, has his own agenda, and as loving as he is, he can be curt and dismissive.

Owen Gleiberman Chief Film CriticFor 20 years, ever since Gilbert Gottfried made the tasteless crack that inspired it just a few weeks after 9/11, “Too soon” has been the mantra we use to jokingly suggest someone is making a joke before the time is ripe for it. But the phrase could also be applied to certain music documentaries.

X directed by Ti West, is a new love letter to the slasher film genre. This movie within a movie that aims to tackle the strict relationship between sex, violence, desire, and the rage that manifests when one’s life lacks all of those things. West employs all the tropes involved with pornography and horror and tries to inject personal hints of creativity and originality into the narrative. Will it age well if I watch it again in five years? Probably not. But it provides enough fun and excitement in the current moment to keep audiences engaged.

X (★★★☆☆) peers into some kinky, kooky crevices of sex and violence.Set in 1979, and shot and styled to evoke films of the era, from Deep Throat to Texas Chainsaw Massacre, X doesn’t upend, but leans into, the tried-and-true formula of nubile young things fucking and screaming their way to bloody deaths. It ups the ante with a self-aware wit, and a set of eccentric killers we’ve never really seen in the genre.The porno film crew led by producer Wayne (Martin Henderson) and director RJ (Owen Campbell) certainly doesn’t anticipate what’s in store for them at the remote farm compound of grizzled, gun-toting Howard, and his decrepit, white-haired wife Pearl.The porn-makers and their stars — stud Jackson (Scott ‘Kid Cudi’ Mescudi), girlfriend Bobby-Lynne (Brittany Snow), and Wayne’s girlfriend, Maxine (Mia Goth) — are all admirably focused on making their production, The Farmer’s Daughters, the hottest adult flick of their careers.In fact, their shoot is so steamy, that the film’s timid sound recordist Lorraine (Scream queen Jenna Ortega) feels inspired to join the cast.

Brittany Snow is stepping out to promote her new movie!

“X,” a new horror movie from A24 and director Ti West that stars Mia Goth, has already filmed a surprise prequel movie that was unveiled following the film’s premiere at SXSW on Sunday. A24 is releasing “X” in theaters on Friday, but after the world premiere, the film was accompanied by footage that announced an upcoming prequel.

A24 and filmmaker Ti West have a prequel ready for X, the New Zealand-shot film that made its world premiere at South by Southwest last night. A24 will be releasing X nationwide this Friday. Prequel footage will be available in theaters.

It’s a little surprising that “X” marks director Ti West’s first film for A24 since his approach to horror — emphasizing character and mood over jump scares, building slowly and steadily to a big bloody blowout — is so synced up with their house style. “X” is also his first feature since 2016, and his first horror film since 2013’s “The Sacrament”; he’s kept busy in the years since with plenty of television work, but this is what he does best, and it’s about time he got back to it.

Richard Linklater’s periodic forays into animation (Waking Life, A Scanner Darkly) have been distinctively imaginative, and that goes double for Apollo 10 ½: A Space Age Childhood. A nostalgic but not in the least sentimental look at Texas life when the American space program was at full thrust, this highly personal but entirely accessible account of growing up in a culture both historically momentous and banal has something to offer all audiences in terms of its vivid portrait of a very specific place and time. But most receptive of all will be viewers in their 60s and beyond who have personal memories of the July 20, 1969 moon landing and a of milieu both memorable and banal.

The Cow is a film about a mystery that comes with many mysteries of its own, chief among them being the question of why Winona Ryder’s career is so shaped by her past. Stranger Things may have brought her back to the public eye, but it seemed to claim her as an ’80s icon when Ryder only had a walk-on part in that decade’s final reel. Her role in Darren Aronofsky’s 2010 ballet psychodrama Black Swan likewise came with a sting in the casting, pitting Ryder as the outgoing grand dame against Natalie Portman as an ingenue snapping at her heels. And here again, much mention is made of her age when Sandra Bullock—seven years her senior—could lead a bigger movie without a peep.