Warning: Contains SPOILERS for Ti West’s X.
Ti West’s X is packed full of horror movie Easter eggs and slick references to slasher movies and the wider horror genre. First premiering on March 13th, 2022, at South By Southwest festival and released domestically on March 18th, 2022, Ti West’s X has opened to rave reviews from the horror community. In particular, critics have cited X‘s desire to return to the classic slasher formula Tobe Hooper’s The Texas Chain Saw Massacre birthed, as well as acting as a poignant homage to other genre forebears such as John Carpenter’s Halloween and Alfred Sole’s Alice, Sweet Alice.
X‘s writer, producer, director, and editor Ti West is no stranger to the horror genre, with the hands-on filmmaker amassing quite the roll call of credits. West has dabbled in more cut-and-paste horror flicks such as Cabin Fever 2: Spring Fever and The Innkeepers, as well as creating more genre love letter-style films such as 2009’s The House of the Devil. Yet the movie that perhaps best exemplifies West’s all-encompassing approach to the horror genre to date is The Sacrament; a harrowing found footage flick based on the real-life events of the Jonestown Massacre of 1978.
As a result, Ti West’s X is jam-packed with horror movie Easter eggs and references in reverence to his beloved slasher genre. From overt scene reconstructions mirroring The Texas Chain Saw Massacre to more subtle nods to gonzo classics like Peter Jackson’s Braindead, X certainly does not lack for deft horror genre references. Here’s every horror movie Easter egg and reference in Ti West’s X explained, including where each one appears in the movie.
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre
Of all X’s horror references, its The Texas Chain Saw Massacre nods are by far the most overt, with Ti West clearly attempting to invoke Tobe Hooper’s seminal movie’s success. Past its opening scene, X begins in an almost identical fashion to The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, with Maxine (Mia Goth), Lorraine (Jenna Ortega), Wayne (Martin Henderson), Jackson (Scott Mescudi), Bobby-Lynne (Brittany Snow), and RJ (Owen Campbell) traveling in a Dodge van to their inevitable doom. The group of aspiring pornographers and adult stars are traveling from Houston into the Texas countryside, winding up at a remote farmhouse that looks very similar to the Sawyer family home from the original 1974 Texas Chain Saw Massacre.
Yet X‘s The Texas Chain Saw Massacre references go deeper than just the recreation of its opening scenes, with Ti West’s movie going to great lengths to recreate Tobe Hooper’s atmospheric knack. X‘s grainy, 1970s real-time approach to each of its’s scenes, coupled with a clear eye on the shifting cultural, sociological, and political climates in the South at the time work much in the same way as The Texas Chainsaw Massacre‘s stark portrayal of the widening social chasms in 1974 Texas. In this way, X is a deliberate and meticulous homage to The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, with almost X‘s whole aesthetic acting in deference to perhaps the greatest horror film ever made.
Psycho
Ti West shows a penchant for doubling down on his horror movie nods in X, which contains three Psycho Easter eggs. The first reference to Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho is more overt, arriving as Lorraine decides she wants in on her boyfriend RJ’s porn film during X‘s first act. This leads to RJ stating his audience “wouldn’t understand” why Lorraine has suddenly entered the film, to which she replies, “What about Psycho?” – in reference to the film’s famous introduction of a new set of protagonists halfway through the film.
X‘s second Psycho Easter egg is slicker from West, arriving in the form of a dead body a-la Norman Bates’ (Anthony Perkins) mother. As Lorraine gets locked in the basement by Howard, she turns to reveal a partially decomposed body chained to a chair. This harks back to Psycho‘s final act, which sees Lila Crane (Vera Miles) find Mrs. Bates’ mummified body that has been hidden by Norman for years.
The final Psycho Easter egg in X forms courtesy of pornstar Jackson Hole’s death. As Jackson discovers a submerged car hidden in the farmhouse lake, he is shot and killed by Howard in an attempt to keep Pearl’s murderous proclivities a secret. This again mirrors a scene from Psycho, in which Norman sinks Marion Crane’s (Janet Leigh) body, belongings, and car in the lake on his property to cover up her murder.
Braindead
One of X‘s most gloriously layered Easter eggs acts as a tribute to Peter Jackson’s Braindead, which is widely considered one of the goriest, cult-classic horror films of all time. X audiences will be hard-pressed to forget the scene of Pearl’s first kill, with Pearl stabbing RJ numerous times before eviscerating and nearly decapitating the unsuspecting porn director. In a neat homage orchestrated by Ti West, X used Peter Jackson’s own WETA workshop for this scene’s gory special effects – with its grotesque nature harking back to Jackson’s early work as a horror director. WETA workshop’s second project since its inception was Jackson’s own Braindead, highlighting West’s acute awareness for his horror forebears in a scene that would not look out of place amidst the viscera of Braindead itself.
The Shining
Lorraine’s extended time in the farmhouse basement births a nicely inverted The Shining reference mid-way through X. As Lorraine tries to free herself from the basement, she picks up an ax, striking it through the door before Howard breaks her fingers. This scene is reminiscent of one of Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining‘s most iconic moments, in which Jack Torrance (Jack Nicholson) hacks through the bathroom door to get to his wife before she slices at his fingers with a kitchen knife – with X flipping this scene as Lorraine tries to get out of the room to escape rather than being the aggressor.
Alligator
While many of Ti West’s horror references are woven neatly into X‘s story, the director is also not shy about including some very on-the-nose recreations of his favorite horror scenes. As with West’s ode to the beginning of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, X kills Bobby-Lynne in a direct reference to Lewis Teague’s 1980 cult-classic Alligator, which sees a mutated reptile named Ramón develop an insatiable appetite and chew its way through Florida’s civilian population. Brittany Snow’s Bobby-Lynne death in X, therefore, arrives as she is pushed into the farmhouse lake by Pearl, with a giant alligator rising out of the marsh to devour her whole, much in the same way that Alligator‘s unnamed “young boy” character is eaten after being pushed into a swimming pool.
