Featured Image Credit: A24
Topics: Horror, Jenna Ortega, TV and Film
Jess Battison
Ride in a hot air balloon, do a sky dive, swim with dolphins, all those standard things people have in a little list in their mind of what they want to do before they die.
Obviously, some of us might have more niche activities on our bucket list or very specific people we want to meet. But it’s not exactly common to prioritise wanting to be scared sh**less before you’re properly gone.
And while plenty of us actively avoid watching horror films, a movie lover on film rating site Letterboxd is urging people to watch a pornographic horror starring Jenna Ortega ‘at least once before you die’.
The movie X features on one cinema lover's list titled ‘horror movies everyone should watch at least once’ with viewers left 'terrified'.
Released in 2022, the movie follows a group of young filmmakers setting out to make an adult film in rural Texas and is part of a trilogy which also includes Pearl (also 2022) and MaXXXine (2024).
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Written, directed, produced and edited by Ti West, the A24 flick follows the group as their saucy scenes are interrupted and they find themselves having to fight for their lives while trying to work out why everyone is suddenly turning up dead.
With viewers impressed by Ortega’s performance in X, it also stars Mia Goth, Brittany Snow and Kid Cudi.
The 22-year-old’s character Lorraine works behind the scenes on the group’s porn production but starts to grow curiosity about the making of an adult film and ends up joining in.
Speaking to IndieWire, Ortega said she had a ‘lot of faith’ in everyone involved and explained why she decided to take on the role.
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“I had never read anything like it before, and that was super-enticing to me,” Ortega explained. “I love that my character comes off one way initially, and then flips the script mid-film."
Describing it as ‘so different from anything’ she had filmed before, the actor was ‘really eager’ to do it.
X currently has a very impressive 94 percent on Rotten Tomatoes’ Tomatometer with a more mixed 76 percent from viewers on the Popcornmeter.
While one called it: “Just another slasher film where the characters make stupid decisions when they could easily get away.”
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Others said: “This star studded cast are all natural, comedic and raw! Cinematography and color palette and atmosphere are all in place! Mia Goth and Brittany Snow and Jenna Ortega really shine in X.”
And another wrote: “Disgusting, horny, exploitative, a love letter to an era gone by the wayside for 'elevated horror', X is Ti West at his best…With far more to say than boobs and blood, the film really lays it on with the themes of sex and love, and taking age for granted. Each kill is more grisly than the last, every jump scare works perfectly - Ti West may have just crafted the best slasher of the last ten years, maybe twenty.”