(This review will have spoilers for Ti West’s X.)
Ti West just gave A24 its first trilogy and franchise with MaXXXine. The third film in the series is a direct sequel to the first film, X, and it stars Mia Goth in all three. X was a throwback slasher film with Mia Goth starring as Maxine Minx, a young stripper turned adult film actress who survives a massacre on a remote Texas farm when the group she was in was secretly trying to film an art house adult film on this old couple’s land. The culprit was an old, repressed woman named Pearl, who could only deal with her repressing, jealousy, and resentment through horrible murderous acts, which Goth also played. The next film explored Pearl, and I honestly didn’t care about that character, so I never saw that film. Yet the Maxine character, our final girl of this series, did interest me as she strove to be someone and be a famous star. Maxine’s mantra of “I will not accept a life I do not deserve” is her way of life and drives her to overcome the obstacles in her way – even serial killers can’t overcome her drive. So, moving from the end of the 1970s to the decadent mid-1980s Hollywood is fitting to continue her story.
The film takes place in 1985 during the Night Stalker murders terrorizing Southern California. Maxine Minx attempts to get a role in a horror film and transition from Adult film to Mainstream Hollywood. Still dealing with the trauma from 1979 and surviving the massacre on the farm people, she starts ending up murdered, and there may be some connection between the Night Stalker and what happened to her in the past. The film does an excellent job of being tongue-in-cheek with the genre and taking itself entirely seriously. Much like the X, it plays with the look of 70s adult films and early slasher films like Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Halloween. Goth does a great job with Maxine here as older but still young and hungry as she tries to walk the tightrope of doing what she needs to do to impress the director Elizabeth Bender (Elizabeth Debicki) to show she’s ready for this type of work but also with all the dangers around encroaching on her from the past, the dangers of Los Angeles and even the police asking questions. Maxine is again an underdog, and even though she’s a “Final Girl,” there’s a tension that she might not make this one.
Ti West does some not deep but good connection between the Evangelical Right, who were protesting and were in their first real public push at controlling what the US society can have as entertainment. It connects perfectly to what is happening now as that group has even more power now than they did during Reagan’s reign as POTUS. That’s the real danger, not the killer stalking the streets but those who wish to control what we all see and hear. Maxine won’t be denied and won’t be controlled. She rejects being saved or protected. She can do that herself. I like that message a lot. Michelle Monaghan and Bobby Cannavale play two Detectives who are working on the murders and keep on Maxine as most leads point to her. They are great comedic relief throughout the film, especially Cannavale as Torres, who wanted to be an actor but ended up as a Police Officer. They have a fun dynamic. The actual scene stealers are Kevin Bacon as John Labat, a terrible Private Investigator who works on behalf of the big bad of the film who knows what happened in Texas. Bacon is so wonderfully over the top that he is sometimes the best thing on the screen. Giancarlo Esposito, as Teddy Knight, Esq., Maxine’s agent, is also fun on screen. I enjoyed seeing actors in roles they aren’t known for and really get into the part.
Moses Sumney plays Leon as a video store clerk who’s Maxine’s only friend. It’s his first acting role, and I think he does a great job in this horror pastiche. I also thought the music and sound were outstanding and encompassing to the film. I loved how the film looked and how it made it look like a video from the 80s, along with some quality lighting and color to the film. Now, I’ve noticed a lot of other critics who are not that into this and think it’s weaker than the previous entries. As I am not a huge horror fan, I enjoyed this more than X, and I was way more interested in seeing this than Pearl, which, as I stated earlier, I haven’t seen. You don’t need to see that one either to get this film, as X is more important. I think this film wraps up Maxine’s story (if this is the end) very well and ties up loose strings from the last while still being an entertaining film on its own merits. MaXXXine is definitely a film I’d watch again. It is a good summertime slasher film that I think most will agree with me.
Score: B
