Running time: 1 h 47m
Kiss and Kill!
By Robert Waldman
Horror films have always found an audience. Cheap to make and given a good storyline they have proven to be box office gold time and time again. Hoping to cash in on those pandemic blues and trying to scare you silly is A24 with their new film X.
Not to be confused with XXX or the Triple X movies featuring the dynamic buff and tough tag team of Vin Diesel and Ice Cube respectively this new X has mostly a no name cast. Get ready to get your freak on at Cineplex Odeon Cinemas and Landmark Theatres across B.C.
Here the X relates to X rated movies. Yes the adult type. The old porn movies that your parents never wanted to let you see but watched behind closed doors or at the old Seaview Theatre in Blaine for hard core of the more erotic fare at the old Studio Theatres on Granville Street. With the advent of VHS video tapes home viewing of adult fare boomed. And when the internet came about it flourished thanks to pornography. Out to catch this wave are a group of budding filmmakers from Houston.
Sex sells. There is no doubt about it. So good old boy Wayne vans up and goes on a road trip with his “stars” and crew. Ready to have a good time is Martin Henderson who kind of looks like a dead ringer (maybe in your/his not so wildest dreams ) for Mathew M Conaughey, hits the nail on the head (or foot) in more ways than one as the team leader and prime motivator for this homegrown project. Along for the ride are ace xxx performers Jackson and Bobby-Lynne, hotly played by Kid Kodi and Brittany Snow along with an assistant, other actress and a Felinni in the making cameraman extraordinaire (?). You get the picture.
To be fair the film is really two parts. Half one concerns the making of a porn pic with lots of pent-up fun and sexy dialogue. Part two turns into an orgy of blood. Call it The Texas Chainsaw Massacre meets Emanuelle. Bottom line it’s all fun in bad taste. Take it all In With a big grain of salt.
Oh yes, and do beware of wolves in sheep clothing. Even some golden oldies get into the act getting into some kinky geriatric stuff.
Director /writer Ti West (In a Valley of Violence)knows his stuff . Here he creates a penetrating atmosphere of some pleasure seekers paying the ultimate price to get off . Shocking, positively shocking to coin a classic James Bond line from the opening precredit sequence of 1964’s Goldfinger .
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