The term “grindhouse” used to refer to a particular style of movie theater that was once common in places like Hollywood Boulevard and Times Square. As far back as the 1920s, these theaters would adhere to a “grind policy” of showing low-budget movies at cut-rate ticket prices, often in a double or triple feature format. The theaters were usually located in the rough parts of a given city, which gave them a reputation: these were bad places that screened cheap, terrible films, which naturally gave them their own sort of charm.
In 1968, the old Hays Code was replaced by the MPAA film rating system, which allowed films to contain violent or sexual content without immediate censorship. Suddenly, “grindhouse” movies featured greater levels of bloodshed and nudity than previous generations could’ve ever dreamed possible, which arguably led to both the “exploitation” craze of the ‘70s and the low-budget slashers and “video nasties” of the ‘80s. (Imagine showing Cannibal Holocaust to a 1950s censor. He’d have exploded.)
By the 1990s, home video and premium cable had driven almost all the old grindhouse theaters out of business, barring a couple of deliberately retro places like the New Beverly or Grand Illusion Cinema. “Grindhouse” subsequently transitioned into being more of a we-know-it-when-we-see-it aesthetic than anything else: grimy genre work, often but not necessarily cheaply made, which revels in its own cheerful depravity.
One of the standard-bearers for modern grindhouse is Ti West, who’s made more movies than people seem to realize. After a stint in the low-budget horror mines of the 2000s with films like Cabin Fever 2, West broke out in a big way a few years ago with X, a slasher that also put its star Mia Goth (The Odyssey) on the cultural map. X eventually became the first film in an eponymous trilogy, and now that entire trilogy can be binged at once via Hulu.
X (March 2022) is the story of a rural massacre in 1979 Texas. An indie film crew comes to a small farm under false pretenses in order to shoot a porn movie, but once the farm’s owners discover what they’re doing, bodies start to drop.
You’d have to be paying close attention to notice, but Goth has a dual role in X. She’s nearly unrecognizable as Pearl, the elderly woman who co-owns the farm and co-commits several murders, and also plays Maxine, a young actress who’s tagged along to make her porn debut.
Pearl (Nov. 2022) is a prequel set on the same farm in 1918, with Goth reprising her role as Pearl as she waits for her husband Howard to come home from World War I. Unfortunately for everyone around her, Pearl is already barely suppressing the rage that will lead to her murder spree in 1979.
The final film in the trilogy, 2024’s MaXXine (not under any circumstances to be confused with the Hulu original queer coming-of-age movie Maxine), is a direct sequel to X. In 1985 Los Angeles, Maxine (Goth) prepares to finally transition from adult movies to horror, but doesn’t realize she has a stalker. If you enjoy a good slasher movie, all three of the X films are worth your time on general principle. West knows what he’s doing by this point, and Goth is difficult to look away from any time she’s on center stage.
For that matter, all the X films have weirdly stacked casts: Jenna Ortega, Kid Cudi, David Corenswet, Kevin Bacon, Michelle Monaghan, Halsey, Lily Collins, Giancarlo Esposito. Like the Scream movies before them, the X trilogy features a murderer’s row (some pun intended) of on-screen talent, rather than the newcomers and no-names that the source material’s usually associated with. The effect is kind of like a gourmet cheeseburger: this didn’t have to be made this well, with these ingredients, but we’re all glad it was.
The most crucial component, however, is that none of these movies are particularly camp. The trilogy would be intolerable if it spent any time winking at the camera. Ti West did a lot of things right here, but the best move he made might be that the X films, and both Maxine and Pearl themselves, aren’t in on their own joke. In fact, there is no joke at all: just two women 60 years apart who’re willing to kill to get what they want.
The X trilogy — X, Pearl, and MaXXXine — is now streaming on Hulu.
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