Sharing movies with loved ones is a beautiful thing. As beautiful as it is, I think we have all experienced a moment while watching a movie with a parent or any comparable figure, where the thing taking place on screen was so uncomfortable you wish the couch would swallow you whole. We’re going to try and avoid that as much as possible! I hope this works as a sort of guide for you to know when you should excuse yourself to refill the popcorn bowl and avoid the wrath of a disgruntled or disgusted parent. One of my favorite releases of the past year is the “goddamn fucked-up horror picture,” Ti West’s X. Now X may seem like the last movie a parent would enjoy, but you don’t know my mom like I know my mom, and I was feeling pretty sure that she would like it. Will it be uncomfortable? Absolutely. But will it be rewarding? Time will tell…
Before we get started, if you have not seen X yet, please go watch it and then come back to read this article, and don’t allow me to spoil a single second of it for you!
Fear Factor
I gave my mom an appropriate amount of hype for the movie X before we began our viewing, so she was equal parts excited and nervous for how wild and bloody I assured her it would be. Immediately, her energy was through the roof, and she was going a mile a minute, saying the way it was filmed was scary, the way no one was talking was scary, the framing was scary, the barn was scary, and this was all in the first 30 seconds of runtime. She was very suspicious of everything after my brief synopsis; a group of young people rent out an elderly couple’s barn to shoot a porno, and the old woman, Pearl, does not take kindly to such activities. Her healthy suspicion kicked into high gear the moment our main character Maxine (Mia Goth) is alone with Pearl, knowing something terrible would happen but not knowing what it was. She also noticed that “she sorta looks like her,” and I kept my mouth shut until she came to the conclusion of why that was on her own, and it was so incredibly satisfying.
My mom was very won over by the TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE vibes present in X, but was also dismayed by the amount of gore. The audience is shown some gnarly roadkill and this caused my mom to say “ew I hate blood and guts,” which just felt like real life foreshadowing for the rest of our viewing. It also led her to feel queasy before anything significant had happened in the movie yet which let me know we were in for a long road ahead. With every slash, stab, jab, and gouge, my mom covered her eyes and screamed in horror. One kill in particular, she predicted exactly how the character would meet their demise, screaming the words “poking through the holes,” repeatedly until she was devastatingly proven right. We get fingers being sliced off, necks being slashed, and a bare foot stepping on an exposed nail that caused my mom to drop completely out of the frame of the zoom window. The final face-off between Maxine and Pearl was so tense I think my mom held her breath the whole time. She was screaming at the screen for Maxine to back the car over Pearl’s head, and when she actually did, my mom applauded and cheered and pumped her fists. She was so hyped up about it that she was completely unfazed by the gore, she was just experiencing pure joy.
Sex and Nudity (The X Factor)
X is a film that embraces sexuality wholeheartedly. Sex is essential to the DNA of this story, and watching the characters film a porno is a big part of that. As you can imagine, this led to my mom and I watching several in depth sex scenes together as the movie progressed. The moment that Martin Henderson’s Wayne faces the camera and announces that it’s time to “give the people what they want to see,” there is no turning back. This was a moment that earned rapturous cheers and applause from the packed theater that I first saw this movie in, but from my mother, it got a much more subdued, “here we go.” Despite the way in which I braced myself to be flooded with embarrassment (more on that later) the first sex scene truly was not too uncomfortable. As with much of X, there is a lot of humor woven throughout, so most of our energy was spent laughing at the jokes rather than stewing in the discomfort. Brittany Snow dirty talking did make me blush a bit though, but I was able to recover quickly.
As X progresses, the sex scenes become less funny, and in turn more awkward. Fortunately for our viewing experience, these scenes are often sprinkled with scares, such as Pearl being seen watching through the window, and my mom would always scream, effectively breaking the tension. There is one sex scene devoted to Pearl and her husband Howard (Stephen Ure) that strikes a different tone than the scenes being filmed for The Farmer’s Daughter. It’s more intimate and sad and intense, and naturally this is the exact moment my dad chose to enter the frame of the zoom call and say hello to me. I then became busy trying to boldly and loudly divert his attention from what my mom and I were watching to spare any more discomfort than the amount we already signed up for.
While these articles typically stay focused on my mom’s wildly entertaining reactions to different horror movies, I would be remiss not to take the time to properly express my love and appreciation for X. Aside from being a damn good slasher, it also feels like a love letter to the genre that we devote so much of our time and energy to, while simultaneously encapsulating some of the things I love most about horror. It’s bloody and sexy and funny and sad and achingly human, reminding you what it means to be alive and how scary that can be. X is a movie that navigates the deeply ingrained shame some people feel surrounding sex and their own sexuality in a way that I found reflected in my own self as I was watching. The moment the first sex scene started and Brittany Snow’s clothes were shed, I broke into a sweat and was experiencing discomfort beyond the usual “watching a sex scene with your mom” nervousness. I very suddenly realized that this was the first time I found myself in a situation like this with my mom since coming out to her as bisexual. I am incredibly fortunate to have parents whose reaction to this revelation can be boiled down to, “cool, thanks for letting us know,” so while I had no reason to consider that my mom would be thinking of me any differently, fear still found a way to creep in.
I became hyper aware of my facial expressions, what if I was smiling too hard and she thought I was enjoying myself too much, or what if I looked too disinterested and she thought I was confused or mistaken when I told her I was attracted to women as well. The most prominent thought that kept repeating in my mind was, “she knows.” My nervous system was working overtime, anticipating every terrible way that my mom could react to this, inventing countless scenarios in a matter of seconds. But what really happened was this; we watched the scene, we laughed at the jokes together, we talked about how wonderful Brittany Snow’s performance was, and we enjoyed the film. Sex scenes continue to feature prominently in X, but I felt that shame and fear and guilt leaving me. That’s kind of one of the main points of the whole movie if you really think about it. For many people, sex is fun. It’s perfectly natural and something to be embraced, and as is the case with X, celebrated. My mom and I joined the characters in the film, raising our glasses to the perverts. And that’s always been what the horror genre is all about. Horror is for the perverts and the weirdos and the people who have ever felt that there was something wrong with them for being who they inherently are, and I want to thank X for making me feel so seen and understood, in perhaps one of the most unexpected of ways.
Did Mom Like It?
And with that, the time came to ask the age-old question: Did Mom like that? I am very pleased to tell you, Mom really did like that. 4.5/5 moms would recommend. I cannot in good conscience give it the 5/5 I so desperately want to assign to X because the sheer amount of blood and guts and sex could certainly lead to an uncomfortable viewing experience with a parental figure. On the flipside though, it could create an unexpectedly beautiful life-affirming moment, so dealer’s choice. I was beside myself with joy over how much my mom enjoyed this movie, as evidenced by the way we were screaming together over the end credits. I thought that it would go well but I couldn’t have anticipated that it would go this well. I love X and I love horror and I love my mom, and this was a perfect viewing that I am incredibly grateful for.
No Comments