“MaXXXine” Review: The satisfyingly bloody conclusion to Ti West and Mia Goth’s horror trilogy

“MaXXXine” Review: The satisfyingly bloody conclusion to Ti West and Mia Goth’s horror trilogy

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In ‘MaXXXine’A24, Halsey and Mia Goth star in the climactic conclusion to Ti West’s multi-decade horror trilogy. Starring in X (2022) in the late 1970s, the film then jumps back over 50 years to Pearl, the WW1 prequel from the same year, and ends in the mid-1980s with a capper that demands a little more thought than its gory, family-friendly predecessors.

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Given the thematically comparable subject matter of 2009’s flawless period piece The House of the Devil, one could be forgiven for believing that West would feel secure in the Reagan years. However, MaXXXine unexpectedly backs off on that level of precision. Based on Bette Davis’s famous statement, “In this business, until you’re known as a monster, you’re not a star,” West’s film is actually an abstract thought-piece about women in cinema, despite the obvious genre setup that promises far more violence than you’d expect and is pretty gory when it does.

A home video of a young girl dancing in black and white opens the story in 1959. A fatherly voice offscreen adds, “That’s my little girl.” She is undoubtedly ambitious. “I’ll do whatever it takes,” she confidently and merrily assures him. “I refuse to accept a life that is not worthy of me.

The girl is named Maxine Minx (Mia Goth), and although it isn’t stated in the film until later, it seems that Maxine has already suffered from a strict upbringing under the control of her evil father, Simon Prast, who is extremely religious. This was prior to the shocking events of X, or as the tabloid headlines later dubbed “The Texas Porn-Shoot Massacre.”

In 1985, Maxine has relocated to Hollywood and is undergoing testing for The Puritan II, a horror sequel. Her audition is equal parts brilliant and terrifying.

She nails it with a hauntingly captivating performance reminiscent of Naomi Watts’s scene-stealing performance in Mulholland Drive, considering her age as thirty-three. She murmurs, “I’ve seen the devil, spectre from my past, stalking me.Feeling victorious, Maxine marches into the parking lot where a group of identical-looking females, possibly her own age, wait. She exclaims, “Y’all might as well go home now, cos I f*cking nailed that,” and ZZ Top’s upbeat song “Give Me All Your Lovin'” launches the actual film.

One area where MaXXXine varies from its predecessors is the breadth of material covered in this credit sequence. West’s film explains what was happening in the middle of the 1980s, rather than recalling it.

In California, serial killer Richard Ramirez, sometimes known as The Nightstalker, was at large, and Tipper Gore, the wife of Al Gore, was determined to rid rock and rap music of its objectionable content when she overheard her 11-year-old daughter listening to Prince’s pornographic “Darling Nikki.” From now on, the action will always be close to these morally rigid clean-up activists because, as Bender notes, “Angry people are so easy to lead.”

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When the severed remains of prostitutes begin to appear, marked with demonic markings, everyone’s thoughts gravitate to the Nightstalker. Maxine gets noticed by two LA police officers (the brilliant and endearing duo of Michelle Monaghan and Bobby Cannavale) since two of them are her pals. Maxine declines to comply, feeling more suspicious of the cunning private investigator John Labat (Kevin Bacon), who is aware of her true identity and, more crucially, appears to possess the clue as to who the real murderer is.

Now for a PSA for those who are familiar with the genre: be aware that the trailer is a bit of a downer; Brian De Palma’s twisty erotic thrillers just set the tone, and you won’t get very far attempting to figure out who the teasefully little-seen killer is based just on their androgynous black attire. Similarly, it’s not truly a tribute to Italian giallo; this isn’t a murder mystery in the traditional sense, save from one extremely graphic set piece.

After the X and Pearl lead-up, which both shamelessly played with storytelling devices and cinematic language to sell both the sizzle and the steak, the reveal is actually very disappointing. Remarkably, despite a clear homage to the Mitchell brothers’ porno-chic breakthrough in 1972 This time around, West is being very typical behind the Green Door. He practically runssacked through the Universal studio lot, taking Maxine to the Psycho mansion and, wait, is that the town square set from Back to the Future?

These little moments add up since West doesn’t seem all that eager in concluding his trilogy with another parodied horror film, though this may just be pure speculation. MaXXXine speaks out, sometimes awkwardly, but more often than not, against the denigration of the horror genre and the exploitation and humiliation of women in Hollywood as filmmakers and performers.

 

Debicki, who serves as this project’s face, delivers a delivery that borders on hyperbole when she promises Maxine, “We’ll prove them all wrong together in a beautiful f*cking bloodbath,” but it’s difficult to ignore her point of view when she makes this assertion.

Title: MaXXXine

Ti West, director and screenwriter

Cast: Giancarlo Esposito and Kevin Bacon, alongside Mia Goth, Elizabeth Debicki, Moses Sumney, Michelle Monaghan, Bobby Cannavale, Halsey, and Lily Collins

Assessment: R

Distributor: A24

Duration: 1 hour and 44 minutes