Maxine Minx is an aspiring actress who travels to Houston, Texas to star in a pornographic film called The Farmer’s Daughter. Traveling with her is her boyfriend Wayne, who is also the film’s executive producer, and the rest of the crew, including director RJ, sound engineer Lorraine, and actors Bobby-Lynn and Jackson.
Arriving at the farmhouse, Wayne goes to talk to the elderly owner, Howard, but is met with hostility and points a rifle at him. Only after reminding Howard that they’ve already talked about renting his house does he allow them to stay.
Before filming begins, Maxine meets Pearl and soon realizes that she is flirting with her. Pearl talks about her age and that she and Howard haven’t had intimacy for a long time. As the crew begins filming, the opening scene features Bobbi-Lynn and Jackson having sex. Meanwhile, Pearl is watching the scene and seems to get aroused.
That same evening, Lorraine expresses her desire to get a role in the film, but her boyfriend RJ refuses. However, in the end, the film crew agrees to give her the opportunity to film one of the scenes. During the scene, RJ breaks down and leaves. While in the shower, he hears a noise in the street and, looking closer, sees Pearl standing on the road. He tries to help her return to the house, but seeing that she is harassing him, he fights back. In response, the old woman takes out a knife and pierces the guy several times.
After this moment, serial killings of the film crew begin. In this, the film takes a cue from the old slashers of the 80s, but without sliding into an endless bloodbath, leaving enough “calm” moments for the viewer to fully feel the tension of each scene.
The film has a really good plot and many different “twists” and unexpected moments that could already be resolved in the Pearl prequel, or may be revealed in the final picture of the trilogy.
“X” ending explained
In the end, only two crew members survive the carnage set up by Howard and Pearl, with Maxine hiding under a bed and Lorraine locking herself in the basement. And after Pearl, lustful and depraved, persuades her husband to have sex, Maxine quietly saves Lorraine. But Lorraine, in a panic and hysteria, accuses Maxine of promiscuity and tries to escape, but Howard shoots at her.
This leads the dying Lorraine to let out a death rattle, which caused Howard to have a fatal heart attack. And in an attempt to take revenge on Maxine, the distraught old woman starts the chase. In a tense denouement, Maxine pulls out Wayne’s gun and shoots the woman, but the gun is empty. But Pearl was just as lucky, because besides the fact that she misses with a gun, its recoil repels the old woman, from which she falls and breaks her hip. She asks for the girl’s help, but she runs her van over Pearl’s head, wanting to avenge her friends.
The next day, the police arrive at the farm and learn the truth about Pearl and Howard’s murder. An unexpected turn of events reveals that Maxine is the daughter of a local Christian preacher whose sermons were played on the couple’s TV throughout the film.
The meaning of the movie “X”
At first glance, the ending of the film “X” fits the classic slasher formula, where the surviving girl defeats the killers and escapes. However, Tee West’s film is filled with symbolism that goes beyond the brutal ending. Symmetry Maxine and Pearl represent the natural cycle of life where the new conquers the old. Pearl represents a convention, longing for a youth and beauty she can no longer achieve, while Maxine represents change and rebuffs Pearl’s advances before finally defeating her in the final act.
This conflict between convention and change is an eternal one, presented both in the real world and in the film. The victory of change over convention is inevitable, and this is reflected in the finale of the film. So the ending of X is not just a satisfying resolution to the slasher story, but also a metaphor for humanity and the forces of change and convention that shape it.
What was Pearl’s motivation?
The film is riddled with various fits of rage Pearl, during which she gradually reduces the number of members of the film crew. Pearl’s envy of their hedonistic pleasures and sexually charged lifestyle leads her to murder them in a veritable celebration of violence. Howard, aware of Pearl’s intolerance for such behavior, warns the group to stay away from the farmhouse for fear of her wrath.
However, the film’s ending doesn’t fully explain why Pearl committed several murders prior to this particular incident. Howard admits that he had to “clean up after her” in the past, as evidenced by the flooded car and the chained corpse in the basement, as well as the Pearl prequel film. Given that there are no other groups of porn actors using their farm until the 1970s, viewers are left wondering what it was that Pearl was spurred on to lead to this violent outburst.
In the prequel, it was established that Pearl was a killer even before the events of the X movie. But in the first part of the trilogy, the murders are best explained by her greedy nature, which becomes apparent when she keeps her eyes on the sleeping Maxine. When Pearl walks around the house and reminisces about her “glorious years” before the first war, she shows her strong desire to return to her former beauty. Thus, it is implied in the film that the cruelty of the old woman is caused by envy and anger at her own mortality, and not just by sexual acts, as the original storyline suggested.
Who is Maxine’s father?
As mentioned earlier, in the end it was shown that the father of the main character is a local TV preacher, who was already watched by a couple of maniacs on an ongoing basis. The man says that his daughter ran away from home, I beg her to return to her family and to God. Such a line on the well-known theme of the “Prodigal Son” can be traced throughout the film. Also, the quote from the Bible repeatedly said by Maxine “I will not accept a life that I do not deserve” refers to this.
While the use of bible verses in horror films is an old gimmick, X uses them to great effect to reinforce its narrative themes, rather than just add a touch of gothic horror, as some movies and TV shows do. The film’s ending leaves Maxine’s final decision ambiguous, as it’s unclear if she chooses to look for her family or continue to pursue her dreams of fame and fortune in Hollywood. While the latest film in the MAXXXINE trilogy may clear up this uncertainty, it remains unknown at this point how Maxine will react to her father.
All in all, X is a gripping and tense slasher film that keeps viewers on their toes until the very end. The characters are complex and imperfect, and the plot twists and turns in unexpected ways. The film’s denouement is interesting, wrapping up the story and leaving viewers with something to think about. The film is a must-see for fans of the horror and slasher genres.
