Film Buff Musings

Set in the backroads heat of 1979 Texas, X follows a ragtag crew of amateur filmmakers who rent a farmhouse to shoot a pornographic feature—tastefully titled The Farmer’s Daughters. They’re young, brash, and hoping to cash in on the growing home video market. But the real spectacle isn’t what’s happening in front of the camera—it’s what’s happening just out of frame, with the farm’s elderly owners: Howard and Pearl. You can sense something’s wrong the moment they appear. Not just the pallid skin or rheumy eyes—it’s a deeper kind of rot. Pearl, in particular, watches the film shoot with a hunger that edges from voyeurism into something feral. When that longing turns violent, the movie flips—slow burn to slasher—and Ti West knows how to pace the descent. The kills are brutal, the dread methodical, and the blood hits like punctuation. This is a precision-made horror film: tightly framed, sharply acted, and steeped in genre literacy. Mia Goth, playing two roles, is unsettling in both. Brittany Snow and Jenna Ortega give their characters more interiority than the setup seems to require. It’s also one of the most unapologetically graphic horror films in recent memory—gore, nudity, moral collapse. All of it. And yet, I wasn’t fully onboard. For all its craftsmanship, the tone is so unrelenting—so airless—it left me feeling pummeled. There’s elegance in the execution, but very little oxygen. Some horror exhilarates. This one made me want a shower and a stick of gum.

Dr. Xavier (Ray Milland) is on the verge of a scientific breakthrough: a chemical eye drop that grants X-ray vision. One drop rewires the brain’s visual processing, allowing the user to see through layers of matter—skin, bone, walls, anything. The intended application is medical: imagine diagnosing a tumor or performing surgery without ever making an incision. But early tests—on a monkey—prove disastrous. The animal sees too much and promptly dies. Undeterred, Xavier reasons that the human mind can handle what a monkey’s could not. He becomes his own test subject. What follows is a striking blend of speculative science fiction and lurid pulp. Corman treats the material seriously, which is what makes it work. The premise is preposterous, but the tone is steady. As Xavier’s powers intensify, so does his instability. His journey takes him from a research hospital to a carnival sideshow to a gaudy detour in Las Vegas, but the film never winks. It plays like a cautionary tale in B-movie clothing. The special effects are clever and surprisingly effective. Objects dissolve in layers like onion skins, and the city begins to shimmer with ghostly transparency. Xavier’s initial purpose—to heal—is quickly corrupted. He gawks through clothing at parties, sees things he shouldn’t, and can’t look away. Milland carries it. He gives Xavier a quiet desperation, narrating his visions with a mixture of clinical fascination and growing dread. The script lets him speak with conviction, even when the science is shaky. This isn’t profound, but it’s stylish, efficient, and wildly entertaining. Low-budget sci-fi with real imagination.