I had a plan for X, and it didn’t involve selling to Elon Musk. Well, it was half a plan anyway. But like most of my plans, half baked is the only setting my non-existent oven goes to. The movie I wanted was X-tro. Now I haven’t watched this in years. And by years I mean decades. I don’t own a copy of it. I searched and searched to no avail. It is not streaming anywhere and a physical copy goes for $150 and up. While I like doing this, I don’t have the funds to spend like that on a DVD. If in the future the site does have a review of this, you know one of two things has happened. My ship came in and I’m rich (yay me) or a new release happened and it is a $20 DVD.

The idea of this movie is simple. A group of young good looking people are going to make a porno in 1979, but are going to a remote farm where they rented a cabin to film it. Not exactly a horror set up, but the elderly couple who own the property are a bit on the homicidal nature. As such, they do the things that make people call you things like, well, homicidal.

When I finally watched this about a year ago, I was pretty “meh” on it. Didn’t get the hype. And because I waited to watch it, I got to watch the sequel/prequel Pearl right afterwards. And I was very meh at this point.

Later, in talking with Cullen Bunn about the movie, I expressed my feelings. Something I missed was relevant here. (And not in a “Oh that’s a new second Death Star, not the remnants of the blowed up one” way. Long story. Sometimes I’m dumb.) Mia Goth in Pearl was playing Pearl, the old homicidal lady in X. Perhaps if I had read anything about these movies, I would have known that. And then I found out just today that Mia Goth actually played both Maxine and the old lady Pearl in X.

Ok, so now it makes sense how the prequel movie has Mia Goth playing Pearl. And while I did rewatch X in order to do this, I did not rewatch Pearl (It doesn’t start with an X. Although technically since it is movie two of the X trilogy, it kinda did start with an X…hmmm…) And still haven’t watched Maxxxine.

But back to X. It is an interesting movie. I still don’t think I am in the “wowed by it” category. Part of me thinks that the idea of watching a horror movie that is a porn helped to push this movie into a different level of interest. And as I sit here digesting it all, I realize I’m still a bit meh on it all. It felt like the characters were all fleshed out just enough to have names and a couple of details about who they were. The sort of minimal character building you may expect from a porn.

Maybe after rewatching Pearl and then viewing Maxxxine it will all come together. But that’s a lot of story telling investment for a movie that I don’t know that I think deserves that much attention.

This is perhaps the weakest of all entries on my path to alphabetical enlightenment here. Maybe I missed a better option for X. That is highly possible.

I didn’t have an X entry lined up for a foreign movie. Figured I would figure it out when I got there.

I came across the title X-Cross. This was a fascinating film. In 3 different ways.

The story is about a young woman who breaks up with her boyfriend and goes to a holiday bath house spa for a weekend getaway with a girlfriend of hers. But before we get there it is weird. Because we start with someone at the spa who appears to be spied on and then hunted down and finds a phone in a closet.

Then the movie does a rewind and we start over.

Ok, I’m intrigued by this device you are utilizing here.

Now back to the two friends who are at the spa. There is a weirdness to all the characters around and at the spa. Most of them appear to be invalids, either physically or mentally. Or both. There is a strange Y shaped twig motif going on with one branch of it painted red. They hang on doors and people wear them as necklaces. And the residents of the village spa all have a fascination with the legs of the two young women who came to the spa.

They get separated and the main girl goes back to her room where she finds the phone in the closet and talks to a stranger who tells her the villagers want to cut off her leg. She manages to escape from them and is on the run, seemingly abandoning her friend, but in her defense she is running for her life. When all seems lost for her…. We get a rewind.

Back to when she left her friend in the spa. And her friend calls someone and tells them “She just left the spa and is going back to the room.” Or something close to it.

Wait? She is setting her friend up. Suddenly I’m glad the main character on the run abandoned that double crossing jerk. But now we are following the double crossing jerk for her story.

Something I forgot to mention. Just before arriving at the spa, they almost hit some random woman with a parasol who makes threatening gestures at them like cutting with scissors. Now back to the jerk (parasol girl is relevant) and her story. She goes to a restroom and encounters the parasol girl again (see, I told you she was relevant.) But she doesn’t know why. Parasol girl has two very large pairs of scissors, the kind that would make Edward Scissorhands jealous. And Parasol girl is being very aggressive towards the jerk. In the “I want to stab you in the face and kill you” way. And these scissors are almost supernatural. Sparking whatever they hit. Penetrating through the metal doors. Cutting water pipes. But the jerk manages to escape.

And talks to the friend she came with on the phone. They are both now trying to meet and escape. Her friend has someone coming in a car to save her. And she still wants to help the jerk even though she now suspects the jerk was trying to bring her here to kill her.

But suddenly Parasol girl returns. And now her scissors are massive. Like the blades are 3 foot long! How? Why? No reason, just go with it. She gets all stabby with her super size scissors, but the jerk finds a chainsaw and now we have a battle! Mind you her chainsaw is a little baby one, the size Leatherface probably got as a Christmas present when he was 2. But Scissors versus Chainsaw battle royale is a go. And somehow the jerk winds up getting her leg cut with the chainsaw, but then manages to blow up Parasol girl. Because a trail of lighter fluid type liquid is set on fire and when it reaches Parasol girl she blows up like a 70’s Pinto that got rear-ended.

Back to our main character though who has been captured and is now about to be sacrificed by a cult of leg worshipping, errr… cultists. I glossed over the bit where she was rescued by her ex that she left before coming here, but it turns out he was from there all along, and this whole thing was a ruse to get her to the village so her leg could be cut off as well as his and she would love him forever and they would live happily ever after.

But the jerk shows up, limping, at the last minute to try and save her friend after coming to her senses. She manages to fend off all the cultists by using her phone and taking pictures of them. They back away like Mogwai having a Polaroid flash go off in their face. They two are allowed to have a touching moment of introspection where the cultists just wait until they are done talking before trying to get them again.

How will they possible escape? Well, Parasol girl shows up again (suitably charred looking after being blown up) with her big scissors and begins cutting down the cultists in her attempt to get to the jerk to kill her. But suddenly a second rescue car arrives and the recently resumed BFFs make their final escape. But somehow as they race off in the vehicle, the entire village of limping cultists chase the vehicle and manage to catch up to it. But as her would be husband tries climbing into the car, she kicks him literally to the curb and out the window, comically bowling over the villagers.

Whew. That was close. I feel like I missed a reveal moment at the end when the driver of the escape car shows his face for the first time.

I don’t know what to say about this movie. Except I literally just said about 1000 words about it. This was a wild ride. I thought I understood and then I didn’t and then I did and then I thought maybe I accidently smoked meth while watching Battle Royale (and then found out this movie is directed by the guy who did Battle Royale, which I didn’t know until I was finishing this posting.)

I have a strong feeling that I will be buying a copy of this, because I had to subscribe to a streaming service called Asiancrush in order to watch it, and I don’t think the overall fare they offer is going to be in my wheelhouse.