Going into 2022’s X, I’d seen two feature films from writer/director Ti West. I disliked 2009’s House of the Devil but largely enjoyed 2011’s Innkeepers.

2022’s X became the tiebreaker. Read on to see where my feelings went!

Set in 1979, a small crew goes to a location in remote Texas. They go there to shoot a low-budget porn flick called The Farmer’s Daughters.

This leads down weird paths, though, mainly due to creepiness related to the owners of the property. As the spookiness escalates, deaths come along the way.

Earlier I alluded to the way X would “break a tie”. It did, and it did so in the resoundingly negative.

Yeesh, what a terrible movie. Pretentious as all get-out, X seems slow, boring and essentially pointless.

X thinks it's a lot smarter and more clever than it is. It uses the "porn movie shoot" scenario as a gimmick that makes next to no difference in the end result.

Basically we get a riff on Texas Chainsaw Massacre that wants to be Socially Deep but just manages to become sleep inducing. West seems far more concerned with aesthetics and extended shots of not much of anything than actual storytelling/character development.

Earlier West got compared to Quentin Tarantino because of throwback festishism, but at least QT writes interesting dialogue and characters. Those aspects of X were just a load of nothing, and the "story" seems vague and pointless.

X provides a horror movie with no horror and nothing to make it worth watching. I think there's a middle ground between "pretentious snoozefest" and "cheap, by the numbers horror flick" but this effort can’t find it.

I'm not unilaterally opposed to West's style, and I'm not one who needs graphic violence every 2 seconds. I like "slow burn" horror.

This one just feels like a failed experiment to me. It doesn't go anywhere interesting, and the conceit whereby the same actor plays two separate parts is a massive eye-roller for me. It was clear from Minute One that Mia Goth took on both roles, and that was just a silly affectation.

We spend tons of time with the characters but never feel like we know much about them beyond basics - and cliché basics at that. The antagonists stay in the shadows most of the time - literally, since West needs to hide the actress - and while it makes sense that they stay undefined for a while, they never really pay off, and the film spends too much time with them in that "build up" period.

A lot of the film simply seems indulgent and meandering. You know it builds to something, but it gives us such a dull, bland journey that we don't care by the time we get there.

Oh well. Maybe my fourth time with West will improve on Movie Three. Since West’s next flick offers a prequel to X, I can’t muster much optimism.

X appears in an aspect ratio of approximately 1.85:1 on this Blu-ray Disc. This became a good representation of the source.

As that implies, this meant an image without the usual qualities we’d expect from a circa 2022 film. X opted for a look and feel that acted as a throwback to the 1970s.

This manifested primarily in terms of definition, which leaned a little soft. X showed adequate delineation, but it could feel a bit on the loose side – again, intentionally.

No issues with jagged edges or moiré effects appeared, and I saw no edge haloes. Print flaws remained absent.

Despite the 70s affectations, X with a fairly modern palette that favored amber and teal. The colors looked well-rendered within those choices.

Blacks felt fairly deep and dense, while low-light shots offered reasonable clarity. Nothing here excelled, but the image reproduced the source as intended.

Don’t expect fireworks from the restrained DTS-HD MA 5.1 soundtrack of X. Instead, we largely got a moody affair.

Music showed good stereo presence, and effects created a foreboding sensibility. These elements never added much zing to the proceedings, but they formed the appropriate sonic tone.

Audio quality worked fine, with speech that seemed natural and concise. Music appeared full and rich, as the track played the mix of score and 1970s songs in distinctive manner.

Though effects didn’t get much to do, they remained accurate and tight. This turned into a perfectly serviceable track for the story.

A few bonus features fill out the disc, and That X Factor runs 11 minutes, 37 seconds. It offers notes from writer/director Ti West and actors Jenna Ortega, Owen Campbell, Mia Goth, Brittany Snow, Scott Mescudi, and Stephen Ure.

“Factor” covers aspects of the horror genre and the film’s take on it, story/characters, cast and performances, and West’s work on the set. This becomes a short but decent overview.

The Farmer’s Daughters goes for four minutes, 56 seconds and lets us see the porn film within the film. It’s not actually pornographic, of course, but it becomes a fun addition to the disc.

Next we find a Pearl Makeup Timelapse. It spans one minute, 33 seconds and shows the process through which Goth went.

Goth offers commentary as we watch. This offers a nice view of the makeup process.

Also from A24 brings ads for Everything Everywhere All At Once, After Yang and The Green Knight. No trailer for X appears here.

A mix of Boogie Nights and Texas Chainsaw Massacre, X becomes a dull snoozefest. The film wears its pretensions on its sleeve and never becomes anything even vaguely compelling. The Blu-ray brings generally positive picture and audio but it lacks substantial bonus features. This turns into a dull disappointment.