It’s almost an obsession – Ti West has been wanting to pay homage to horror movies of the 1970s and 80s, and he did in 2009 with The House of the Devil and in 2012 with chapter Second Honeymoon of film V/H/S, a sort of faux found footage horror film. With X: A Sexy Horror Story, Ti West created an homage to the slasher genre and, at the same time, to the ‘Golden Age of Porn’ at the moment when it was being ended by videotape.
Texas, late 1970s (though filming took place in New Zealand) – the director successfully mixes genres and analyses old age sexual drives and body decay in quasi-morbid fashion. Actress Mia Gold stars in the double role of Maxine – a young woman looking into a career in porn – and elderly Pearl, a great interpretation helped by a generous dose of practical effects. Pearl’s earlier story is the subject of the movie that will be presented today at the Venice Film Festival – Pearl – and, arguably, the third and final chapter of a trilogy.
Also interesting is Ti West’s 2013 mockumentary The Sacrament, produced by Eli Roth and inspired by the 1978 Jonestown mass suicide event. The exception in West’s filmography is a western starring Ethan Hawke and John Travolta, In a Valley of Violence (2016), all about the concept of violence, seasoned with a generous amount of black humour.