The indie horror boom of the early 2000s give us fantastic and terrifying movies, and provided a launching platform for new filmmakers. Among them was Ti West, who fused '70s and '80s inspiration with his own ideas to create the creepy and ultimately horrifying THE HOUSE OF THE DEVIL.

West has spent the last few years directing episodic television, but this year he returns to the big screen with a new horror movie simply called X. The title suggests exactly what you're probably thinking, as the story follows a ragtag movie crew that rolls up to a remote location where they can make an adult movie in peace. But things do not go as planned, and — well, we're not sure exactly what does happen, but based on the first trailer we can't wait to find out.

This first trailer for X lays out some key ideas. The movie looks like a combination of the original TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE and Paul Thomas Anderson‘s early masterpiece BOOGIE NIGHTS. That is probably the exact point of this trailer — to make us feel like we have some frame of reference for this horror story.

If West's previous movies such as THE INNKEEPERS and THE SACRAMENT are any indication, however, there's more going on here than just an homage to a pair of notable stories that were made or set in the '70s. (BOOGIE NIGHTS, of course, straddles the '70s and '80s, and was made in 1997, so it's a throwback homage in its own right.)

West's best movies, such as HOUSE OF THE DEVIL and THE INNKEEPERS, have a look and feel that harkens back to horror of the '70s and '80s. It's clear that X is meant to evoke similar feelings, even if that's not West's only goal with the movie. West specializes in strange slow-burn stories that have big, freaky payoffs, and everything we've seen from X so far suggests that X is going to push his style further than ever.

From his early days as a director, Ti West has had a great eye for casting, and often pairs young new talents with established genre favorites. In X, Mia Goth stars as Maxine, and the cast also features Jenna Ortega, Martin Henderson, Scott Mescudi, Brittany Snow, and Owen Campbell as RJ.

X is unleashed on March 18!

All images courtesy of A24.