Review: MaXXXine

Image courtesy of A24.

Low budget horror maestro Ti West wraps up his period piece horror movie trilogy with "MaXXXine," which I liked better than most, ultimately placing it second among the three films. "X" remains my favorite, while "Pearl," despite Mia Goth's committed performance and its technicolor flourishes, was my least favorite. I know I am in the minority on this.

"MaXXXine," which is set in 1985 in Hollywood about six years after "X" concluded, finds West drawing inspiration from Italian giallo thrillers, 1980s slasher films, and the work of Brian De Palma. It opens with an invigorating burst of energy, a series of news clips covering everything from Ronald Reagan speeches and reporting on the British Video Nasties film list to '80s satanic panic and Twisted Sister's Dee Snider testifying to congress amid calls for censorship in popular music, all set to the tune of ZZ Top's raucous "Gimme All Your Lovin'."

Maxine (Goth), the only survivor of "X," has relocated to Los Angeles, where she's been working in adult films but hopes to get her big break in a serious movie. For now, she is in the running for a lead role in what at the time must have been the equivalent of elevated horror - a fictional series known as "The Puritan."

Several associates of Maxine meet untimely deaths and are found carved up and deposited in various places around the city, leading detectives (Bobby Canavale and Michelle Monaghan) to keep a close eye on her. Is Maxine somehow mixed up in these deaths, or does it have something to do with The Night Stalker, a serial killer with satanic impulses who is terrorizing the city by night?

A sleazy detective (Kevin Bacon) shows up and begins tormenting Maxine, claiming that someone from her past is looking for her. Despite ample doses of gore - there's a particularly grueling murder at a video store, a head exploded by a shotgun, a person crushed in car compactor, and groin dismemberment that you won't soon forget - "MaXXXine" has much more the vibe of a mystery. Is our heroine being pursued by someone involved in the Texas Porn Star Massacre, as it's depicted in a newspaper, or does it have something to do with a video seen at the film's beginning in which Maxine's preacher father talks to her as a girl on camera?

West has successfully created a film covered in '80s vibes, from the synth score that reminds me of something that might have accompanied a Michael Mann film from that era to the clothing, the home video vibe of some of the shots, and video cover art in the store where one of Maxine's friends works. There are a number of great needle drops (Animotion, Ratt, and Kim Carnes are among them), although the usage of "Man in Motion (St. Elmo's Fire)" is easily the most memorable.

Not everything ties up as neatly as I might have liked in the film's frenzied finale, but overall I thought that "MaXXXine" was a solid closer to this series. I listed "X" among a batch of other solid horror movies from 2022 (including "The Black Phone" and "Watcher") in my top 20 of that year. "Pearl," which is the favorite of many critics from this series, boasted a great Goth performance and some solid technicolor-styled cinematography gave it the feel of the most lurid movie Douglas Sirk never made. But it was otherwise my least favorite entry in this series.

"MaXXXine" may fall short of the first picture in the series, but it's a solid sendoff. Goth's work in these three films lend credence to Maxine's pronouncement that she's a fucking movie star. It's often difficult to gain recognition for a performance in a horror movie, but her work in this series has been impressive. And West has given us the only (mostly) successful horror movie trilogy that comes to mind. This was a fun movie.