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Nothing hits quite like a horror movie novelization. Popularized before the advent of home video, this unique art form turns our favorite scary movies into pocket-sized page-turners. While it’s thrilling to experience these terrifying tales in another format, the real treat is learning more about each story. Novelizations offer intimate access to complex characters and internal thoughts that can’t be revealed through action or dialogue. After peaking in the ’70s, it now seems that the horror novelization is making a comeback. Earlier this year, A24 announced plans to release novelizations of the X trilogy, a feminist horror series exploring the connection between sex and death. Directed by Ti West, the multigenerational saga follows two ambitious women determined to succeed under the bright lights of Hollywood. Born into wildly different eras, their stories reveal hidden truths about power, objectification, and female sexuality.
Tim Waggoner kicks off the series with X, a violent homage to Tobe Hooper’s The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and the gritty world of exploitation filmmaking. The story’s major beats play out the same—the cast and crew of a low-budget porno meet a pair of murderous octogenarians on a remote Texas farm—but Waggoner sprinkles in fascinating details, creating windows into the private lives of each character. We learn that Bobby-Lynne (Brittany Snow) was once a small town cheerleader, Wayne (Martin Henderson) has a startling lack of business savvy, RJ (Owen Campbell) uses a mental trick to cope with filming his girlfriend’s sex scene, and Lorraine (Jenna Ortega) tends to wear incorrect Day of the Week panties.
While fascinating, these tidbits are merely a fraction of what we learn in Waggoner’s retelling of this deadly night in rural Texas.
Howard enables his wife’s darkness.
When Wayne and his crew first arrive on the property, they immediately encounter a dangerous man. The elderly Howard (Stephen Ure) points a shotgun at his visitor having forgotten about their arrangement to rent out the nearby bunkhouse. Cruel and unforgiving, Howard seems to frighten his wife Pearl (Mia Goth) who tiptoes around the house to avoid sparking his anger. In fact, it’s not until midway through the film that we discover the true driving force behind the couple’s decades-long killing spree.
The insatiable Pearl frequently kills in a fit of passion or rage, then Howard swoops in to clean up the mess. Well aware of his wife’s dark side, he treats Pearl like a goddess and has become an enabler of her grisly crimes. Now that he can no longer meet her sexual needs, Howard imprisons young travelers then delivers them as “gifts” or “playthings” for his sadistic partner. Pearl calls Howard the closest thing to a conscience she’s ever had, but he has no qualms about murdering to please his aging wife. Over the years, he’s learned what type of victim she prefers and knows that an excess of blood will only heighten her excitement.
The man in the cellar died a brutal death.
When darkness falls on the deteriorating farm, Wayne’s cast and crew encounter creatures more dangerous than a shotgun-toting grump. Lorraine wakes to discover her boyfriend missing and steps out into the night to track him down. Instead she finds Howard looking for Pearl and agrees to retrieve a flashlight from the darkened basement. But Howard locks the door behind her, trapping Lorraine in the foul-smelling room. After stumbling around in the musty dark, she is stunned to find a decomposing corpse shackled to the ceiling. Heavy manacles dig into the man’s wrists and ankles and a black cord has been tied around his neck.
West gives us just a glimpse of this unfortunate figure, but Waggoner expands on his grisly demise. With his pants and underwear pooled around his ankles, the man’s genitals have been essentially stripped of skin. Lorraine suspects this was accomplished with steel wool or a cheese grater, before surmising that it might be the result of repeated and brutal sexual assault. What she sees in this dungeon is so upsetting that the terrified girl contemplates dying by suicide rather than becoming the murderous couple’s next sexual toy.
Jackson has been changed by his time as a marine.
As bodies begin to stack up on the farm, Jackson emerges as the remaining cast’s only hope for survival. A former marine, the stoic man mentions his own service in the Marine corps while gently instructing Howard to point his shotgun somewhere else. As the night unfolds, Jackson discovers truth in the aphorism, “a soldier leaves the war, but the war never leaves the soldier.” After months of living on the edge of life and death, he’s become a light sleeper and immediately senses danger in the darkened bunkhouse. Waggoner also explains his curious habit of wandering around in the nude. As a porn actor, Jackson is understandably comfortable showcasing his impressive body, but the former soldier also insists upon securing his environment before bothering to cover himself or put on clothes. He offers to help the man search for his wife out of obligation to fellow members of the corps, remembering unpleasant soldiers from his own platoon.
Unfortunately, Howard has no such compunctions. Before Jackson can confront the old man about a submerged car found while searching the pond, Howard shoots Jackson in the chest. West’s version may be shocking enough, but Waggoner adds insult to injury. Instead of simply dying as a result of the shotgun blast, Jackson falls into the pond and is devoured by Pearl’s pet gator.
Maxine will stop at nothing to survive.
We meet this ragtag group of filmmakers through the eyes of rising starlet Maxine Minx (Goth) and learn that the valuable X-factor she exudes has just as much to do with the way she moves as it does her striking and unusual beauty. But Maxine is not content to rest on her appearance. She takes her rise to stardom seriously, studying industry magazines and modeling her approach to acting after tips and tricks from established stars. Though she believes The Farmer’s Daughters will be her ticket to fame and fortune, she worries about filming so close to him.
West waits until the film’s final moments to make the connection between Maxine’s troubled past and the televangelist who’s strident words pervade the story. But Waggoner’s Maxine hears his voice in her head throughout and constantly tries to push it away. While upsetting to watch her suffer with the remnants of his shameful words, it’s her talent for emotional compartmentalization that helps Maxine survive. She is able to immediately detach from Wayne after his death and uses a mantra learned at her father’s knee to help her survive this farmhouse of horrors.
Pearl targets Maxine from the beginning.
Though Howard appears to be the farm’s most dangerous predator, it’s Pearl who cannot control her lust for blood. West does not reveal his shocking antagonist until halfway through the film, but Waggoner introduces us to the elderly murderer right away while detailing her horrific past and sinister motivations. Spying Maxine from the farmhouse window, Pearl becomes entranced with the young woman’s beauty and immediately vows to possess her. Thanks to Howard disabling the bunkhouse locks, she slips into bed with Maxine and marks her back with RJ’s blood.
In fact, Pearl’s obsession for the entrancing young porn actress is so strong that it causes her to override her better judgment. Howard reminds her that it’s more difficult to kill larger groups and believes they should let Wayne’s cast pass through unscathed. But Pearl is so consumed with Maxine’s X-factor, that she initiates a killing spree that winds up taking her life.
A24’s official novelization of X is now available. The first installment in the novel trilogy will be followed by prequel Pearl on November 19, and final installment MaXXXine in early 2025.
