MaXXXine
Review by Mark Woodring
It’s no secret that we really enjoy the first two entries in Ti West’s horror trilogy, X and Pearl.
When MaXXXine was announced, we were suitably enthused, to put it mildly.
**NOTE: You can read Mark’s review below (and Ryan’s review HERE), then use the link below to listen as they discuss the movie together. Remember, though, you can listen to all our discussions of this and every other movie directly over on ACAST. Stay tuned.**
104 Minutes, Rated R
Written and Directed by Ti West
Synopsis:
In 1980s Hollywood, adult film star and aspiring actress Maxine Minx finally gets her big break. But as a mysterious killer stalks the starlets of Hollywood, a trail of blood threatens to reveal her sinister past.
The history of the first two films is pretty well-known: while making X, Ti West and Mia Goth developed and co-wrote the story of Pearl, the old woman from X, to explore how she became who she was.
A much more psychological horror than X, which played to its forebearers (such as 1974’s The Texas Chain Saw Massacre) in a much more literal fashion, Pearl deeply explored the causes of her de-evolution and her eventual fascination with Maxine in X.
Moving forward in time to 1985, Maxine Minx has established herself in the adult film world of Los Angeles but still has her sights set higher; she wants to be to a Star (with a captial S) in mainstream movies.
She has moved on from the trauma of a decade earlier on that tiny Texas farm.
And she gets her big break when she lands the lead role in The Puritan II, the sequel to a successful horror film, directed by an auteur female film director who thinks they can elevate the horror genre into something more (much like RJ the director in X thought he could do with porn). Maxine is in. This is her shot to get the future she believes she deserves.
But the past never really leaves us, does it? Even if we’re moving toward the future we want.
Maxine is sent a mysterious videotape with a “Police Evidence” screen and and footage from the film being shot in X and a demand to meet. When she arrives, she encounters a private investigator played by Kevin Bacon (!), who tells her his employer wanted her found.
The rest of the movie plays like a cat and mouse detective story, as Maxine is stalked not only by a black-gloved mystery man (Kevin Bacon’s employer), but by two police officers (played by Michelle Monaghan and Bobby Cannavale) investigating murders that seem linked to the Night Stalker killer, but who are all associates of Maxine’s.
The climax of the film is a bit… narratively sketchy… but still fits in with what has come before, not only in this film but in the previous two entries.
As different as Pearl was from X, so is MaXXXine different from both of them. It’s a bit more fun, a bit less focused on the porn aspect or the classic slasher stuff; it feels like it’s the most accessible of the three films, and that’s a good thing.
If you’re not a horror fan, then this probably isn’t the film that’s going to magically change your mind in terms of what you’ll watch, but if you enjoyed X and Pearl, then you’ll enjoy this culmination of Maxine Minx’ saga.
MaXXXine is in theaters and stars Mia Goth, Elizabeth Debicki, Halsey, Michelle Monaghan, Giancarlo Esposito, Bobby Cannavale, and Kevin Bacon.
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