XX Summary & Review
Let’s face it: the world of horror movies is largely dominated by male filmmakers. We have had some women, every now and then, make a horror movie, but most of the time, it’s a genre that us guys are the ones to contribute. Now, we have the very first horror anthology film written, directed, and starring entirely women, XX. To review a movie like this, I will review each segment individually.
Wraparound:
The frame story is a stop-motion animated series of surreal images that follow a living dollhouse as it roams around an abandoned house.
This segment not only failed to connect the various segments, but also didn’t really make a lot of sense. I didn’t really get what the purpose of this frame story was, and wasn’t really scared by the house.
The Box:
When a mother’s young son gets a look at a mysterious man’s Christmas present, he refuses to eat anything. Based on the short story by Jack Ketchum.
This was the one segment that I thought had some level of creativity. I enjoyed the concept, sound editing, and mysterious atmosphere. I also thought the ending was satisfying. It left a good, lingering sense of suspense that made it the highlight of this anthology.
The Birthday Party:
A woman discovers a dead body in her house while preparing for her daughter’s birthday party, and becomes desperate to hide it before the guests arrive.
I don’t know what they were trying to do here, but whatever it was, it didn’t work. This segment had nothing scary about it, and not because the scares didn’t work. It’s because it wasn’t trying to be scary. If anything, it’s a black comedy short with no humor at all.
Don’t Fall:
A group of campers become the targets of a evil force when they spend the night on sacred land.
Predictable and derivative, this segment is packed with horror tropes with little to no creativity.
Her Only Living Son:
A women must confront the fact that her son, who is about to turn 18, isn’t what he appears to be.
This was the other segment that had some interesting ideas, but they didn’t really come together in the end. It was also very predictable. I guessed what was going on before it even happened.
XX had some interesting ideas, but the first all-female horror anthology skipped out on creativity. The main problem was that the segments didn’t really link together. It really did look like four women made shorts, and they just put them together with no linking element. So it comes off more like a series of student films rather than a professional feature. I love horror anthologies, but this one didn’t really work.
