In theaters since Wednesday, “X” by Ti West takes us to the 1970s, on a porn film shoot that turns into a massacre. The director has already planned two other films with actress Mia Goth.
X by Ti West
With Mia Goth, Jenna Ortega, Martin Henderson…
What is it about ? At the end of the 1970s, a film crew took over an isolated house in the depths of Texas to make an X movie. At nightfall, the owners of the premises surprised the amateur filmmakers in the act. The filming suddenly turns into a nightmare.
A retro charm
capelight pictures OHG / Christopher Moss
Like The House of the Devil, a horror film he directed in 2006 and which is very marked by the aesthetics of the 80s, Ti West immerses us with X in the rural America of the 70s, inspired by low-budget horror films of the 70s and 80s. “When I look at films from the 1970s, it’s obvious that they were made by people who loved cinema as an art — and I miss that era.”
Reinventing the figures of the horror genre
capelight pictures OHG / Christopher Moss
Ti West aimed to revisit basic figures of the horror genre to draw something more sophisticated: “It was a very inspiring challenge to appropriate the cliché of sex and violence from exploitation films – and to reimagine it in a more thoughtful way.”
1 actress for 2 roles
SGP / BESTIMAGE
Mia Goth plays both Maxine, a young cocaine-addicted Texan who aspires to become a star, and Pearl, a very old lady who welcomes the film crew of the pornographic film with her husband Howard. The Farmer’s Daughter. The British actress is for the occasion unrecognizable under the make-up and the prostheses. She also learned to master the character’s gestures and took training to modify her voice.
In addition to their interpreter, these two characters have in common that they are ready to do anything to get what they want. Mia Goth claims that “if Maxine and Pearl are not the same women, they are two facets of the same character.”
“From the beginning, I wanted to cast the roles of Maxine and Pearl with the same actress, but I didn’t know if I was going to be able to find someone who had the shoulders, and it was very nerve-racking because the success of the film depended on this double interpretation”explains Ti West.
Old age
capelight pictures OHG / Christopher Moss
X evokes the theme of old age and the frustrations (particularly sexual) that accompany it. “Getting old is as inevitable as it is depressing. Especially when, on closer inspection, a whole lot of things in society are reserved for young people”explains Ti West.
Mia Goth adds: “I have a lot of empathy for Howard and Pearl — they are products of their environment and their times — and I feel sorry for anyone like them who feels their lives have been missed.”
The first part of a trilogy
capelight pictures OHG / Christopher Moss
After X, Mia Goth and Ti West will reunite for Pearl, centered on the youth of the old lady, and MaXXXine, where Maxine tries to become an actress in the Los Angeles of the 1980s.
X and its prequel Pearl were filmed at the same time in New Zealand. It was when arriving on site to shoot X that Ti West had the idea of embarking on another project: “Since we had already spent a lot of energy recreating this little corner of Texas on the other side of the world, I thought it would be a shame to take everything apart after a few weeks.” (Excerpt from an interview with Liberation)
During the two weeks of compulsory quarantine at the hotel, he proposed to Mia Goth to stay three more months and to write with him the youth of the character of Pearl.