The final girl is such a classic horror trope that even horror novels can be titled after it. You know the drill—teens hanging out, doing things that teens do, end up being killed off one-by-one by a monster or a disturbed person(s). The one to survive is the virginal girl who doesn’t drink, use drugs, or whatever. As a long-term horror watcher, I think the trope has been exaggerated, but it does occur enough times that there was clearly something to be noticed. Enter X. Released earlier this year, a slasher that rather obviously juxtaposes religion and horror, X features a “final girl” who is anything but virginal and sober. The religion aspect is blatant from the beginning when the opening sequence involves a televangelist preaching to a viewership of the dead.
The title derives from the premise (which is a throw-back to the classic slasher era) that a would-be independent movie producer wants to shoot a pornographic movie. Since this is strictly low-budget, he contacts an elderly gentleman on a remote Texas ranch who has a guest house. With his one male and two female stars, a cameraman/director, and an assistant he drives to the isolated location. They are all divided into couples, with each of the women having sex with the male star. What makes this creepy from the beginning is that the old man, and his elderly wife, create a sinister presence. She sneaks up on the young people, watching them through the window. She misses her younger days when she was young and attractive. As night falls the young people are killed off by the older couple one at a time. What’s more, they’ve done this before.
X is a reflection on aging. More than that, it’s a reflection on how religion leads to horror. To say precisely how would involve giving away a spoiler, so I’ll leave the reader to watch the film to find out. Suffice it to say, the televangelist is preaching about how sex leads to evil and the older couple kills because they’ve been listening to him preach. X is not for the faint of heart. I generally don’t like jump-startles and there were a couple of those that caught me off-guard. (I try to anticipate them when watching slashers, or any horror, for that matter.) But what of the final girl? There is one, but it’s one who flies in the face of horror convention, if there is such a thing.
