The Opening Scene Of Ti West's X Is Now Online To Celebrate VOD Release
If the generally positive reviews and intriguing discourse surrounding Ti West's "X" has yet to lure you to the theater for a viewing session, maybe the opening scene of the film will. A24 has released the first two minutes and 42 seconds of the movie as an "official preview" on their YouTube channel, so now you have no excuse.
The popular distributor debuted the opening scene via YouTube in celebration of the raunchy horror picture's on-demand premiere. In the scene, local police survey the aftermath of a bloody massacre that expands between a farm house and a guest home on the property — and inside the main house, they find something downright sinister.
One of the things this scene does best — aside from expertly setting up the brutal film ahead — is highlight West's love of moviemaking, and how much he wanted that to come across with this film. The opening shot is framed in such a way that it appears the aspect ratio is different than what we're used to as the standard in films, with almost a square frame at play. But as the police arrive, the camera zooms in to reveal a full screen image. It's really smart.
West previously spoke about his reverence for filmmaking as it relates to "X" in a recent interview with Collider. He said:
"I have a great deal of reverence for cinema as an art form and a crazy thing that people go do, and I feel like less and less people grasp that than they used to because we're so bombarded with content all the time. So I wanted to make a movie where the characters in the movie were making a movie to invite you in to kind of be charmed by what it takes to make a movie. And if I could do that, then I could also give the audience sort of a crash course in what I'm doing in the movie. And so if I could make something that really kind of put the craft of filmmaking into the story in a way that was charming and that would hopefully make people think, 'Movies are cool,' that seemed worthwhile to do to me because I sometimes feel I'm missing that."
There's more where that came from
One cool thing about "X" is that we won't have to wait very long to see a continuation of this story — although first, we're going back in time for a prequel. Following the "X" premiere at South By Southwest, West also revealed the prequel film "Pearl," which is set in 1918 and, shockingly, is ready to go. After that, West has a sequel film in store that will seemingly be set at some point between 1979 and now. West told IndieWire about the films:
"If people wonder what the backstory to 'X' is, well, I know all of it. That one will be about how home video has affected people. I'm very proud of these. They're super different and very out-of-nowhere. You won't need to see one to see the other but they do complement each other."
"X" stars Mia Goth, Brittany Snow, Jenny Ortega, Scott Mescudi, Martin Henderson, Owen Campbell, and Stephen Ure. The film is currently in theaters and on demand.