The finale of Ti West and Mia Goth’s trilogy of murder, porn and fame, MaXXXine, lovingly injects 80s Hollywood sleeze and delights in every drop of corn syrup blood.
While it might not exactly end with a bang, it’s a worthy addition to one of the best franchises of the modern era.
Following in the tradition of Scream 3, Wes Craven’s New Nightmare and Seed of Chucky, MaXXXine is the latest Hollywood horror sequel. Where the first film, X, was a 70s slasher and its followup, Pearl, was a technicolor melodramatic Penny Dreadful, MaXXXine takes to the streets strutting with the style of Italian Giallo films, De Palma, Paul Schrader, and other grimy 80s exploitation cinema.
It’s 1985, Hollywood. A coke-fuelled, neon-soaked time of depravity and pearl-clutching. Frank Zappa and Tipper Gore fight it out in the senate over heavy metal’s demonic influences. Parents feel the fever of the Satanic Panic and bemoan the threat of Dungeons and Dragons to the very souls of their children. A serial killer, called The Night Stalker, roams LA. And in this film, a porn-star named Maxine Minx (Goth) fights for her chance to cross over from nudie pictures to the silver screen, all while a black-gloved killer takes a particular interest in her past – and her future.
Director Ti West has had a tremendous elevation to his career thanks to this series. For years, he has been a darling of the indie horror scene with films like The House of the Devil, The Innkeepers, and contributions to the anthologies, ABC’s of Death and VHS, along with a whole slew of horror television (Them, Wayward Pines, Outcast). But with the one-two punch of X and Pearl in 2022 and MaXXXine two years after, it feels like Ti West and star Mia Goth have both arrived to a new echelon in Hollywood. Goth, who starred in X, co-wrote Pearl and produced MaXXXine, has delivered a diverse showcase of her talent and star power that would make any actor envious.
The supporting cast here is stacked. Elizabeth Debicki plays the director of a film within a film, a no-nonsense artist who is striving for greatness and asking Maxine to provide it. Michelle Monaghan and Bobby Cannavale are under-utilised, playing the comedic and clever homicide detectives on the case that flitter in and out of the story. Giancarlo Esposito is my favourite of the supporting roster, playing Maxine’s agent and sporting the best toupee this year. He brings the intensity that made him a household name, but with a heightened silliness and sadly there isn’t more of in the film. Kevin Bacon hams it up as a Louisiana dick-for-hire who acts as emissary for our main, mysterious villain.
If the men aren’t blushing over Maxine the porn star, then they’re underestimating her, threatening her with violence only to find that you don’t survive to the sequel without being tough as nails. Maxine is a lead who strikes first and keeps on moving, running from a past that constantly haunts her. One sequence early on demonstrates this particularly well, when an alleyway mugger corners Maxine with a knife and ends up our first victim. The gore here is sporadic, but always top shelf when it arrives. Throughout this whole trilogy, it’s remained one of the big treats for horror fans. Visceral and practical. And for those who might be a bit squeamish, Ti West gives you plenty of wind up to let you know when it’s coming in.
While X and Pearl were so wonderfully succinct in their execution and geography, both set almost entirely on a small farm, MaXXXine is sprawling and at times over extended. The interconnected mingling of our fictitious Giallo-inspired killer and the real life Night Stalker (who murdered 13 people between 84-85) feels legitimately exploitative, and there isn’t any real subversion to the 80s serial killer film on display to temper that. Maxine sometimes feels a little lost in the scope, becoming an occasional passenger to the plot.
The Hollywood Hills set finale is a lot of fun, but loses a sense of groundedness that could’ve helped tie everything together. The reveal of the villain is a little anticlimactic and feels a bit lazy, there is no subversion here or even really a mystery, which is desperately needed since so much shoe leather is spent on it. We aren’t provided with a string of suspects or red herrings, so the mystery of it all feels fairly flaccid.
The score and the aesthetics of the film are two of its strongest pillars. Anyone with fond memories of Hardcore, Body Double and Peeping Tom can just sit back and enjoy the skeezy sax and neon vibes of it all. And while the film is incredibly, lovingly meta (it’s a horror sequel that Maxine is starring in), it is never inaccessible because of it.
As a standalone film, MaXXXine might not achieve the A+ ideas it’s reaching for, but as a part of a trilogy it certainly does. There are recurrences and references to X and Pearl throughout to reinforce that this is not just a throwaway sequel but an enriching part of a whole. Ti West refuses to speak on whether this is the last we’ll see of Maxine Minx or not, but there is a meta-satisfaction to watching Mia Goth now achieve what her characters in the series have each strived for. To be noticed. To be loved. She is a star, and if you didn’t know that before, you do now.
Fun Fact:
Maxine’s “Oui” shirt is a reference to Oui, a men’s adult pornographic magazine published in the United States featuring explicit nude photographs. Oui ceased publication in 2007.
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