Funereal Plots

Horror Cinema reviews
Matthew M. Bartlett

Maxxxine

Writer/Director – Ti West

Maxxxine is the third in Ti West’s trilogy, essentially a showcase for Mia Goth. In the first movie, X, she and a group of very annoying people go to a farm to shoot an amateur porno and are killed by the elderly matriarch who lives there—that matriarch is named Pearl. The second movie is Pearl’s backstory. Both Maxine and Pearl are played by Goth as a women set on fame at any cost. Pearl’s backstory is essentially a movie-length aside, where as Maxxxine is a direct sequel to X.

I hated X. Hated it with the white hot light of a thousand suns. The dialogue was cliché ridden, the ‘70s milieu sloppy and inept, every single character an insufferable cliché. I generally find slashers a slog, and this was a slog even for a shasher. I thought it was a stain on West’s career, especially after the masterful, tonally and visually perfect House of the Devil, which I still number among my favorites.

When the trilogy was announced, I groaned. When people said Pearl was great, my ears did perk up. After all, I knew what West was capable of. While Pearl proved to be significantly better and more watchable than its predecessor, I still found it wanting.

Now we come to Maxxxine. The trailer piqued my interest. Just from that I thought I might like it enough to consider it the gem of the trilogy. After all, it takes place in the 80s, as did House of the Devil. But it takes place not in the realistic 80s like the earlier movie, but the stylized 80s that seems to live only in the movies of that era.

I was right.

Maxxxine is fun and playful as it apes Brian DePalma, goofs around with Hollywood sleaze, plays around with the Satanic Panic phenomenon, throws in references to Chinatown and Scorsese, and plays up the neon-infused, Frankie Goes to Hollywood eighties. The plot again features Goth as Maxine. Now a star in the porn industry, her ambition demands that she break into legitimate film. Every iteration of Goth’s character(s) has that desire, and Maxxxine has her poised on the brink.

Harshing her mellow is the fact that a black-gloved killer, possibly the Night Stalker, is picking off her adult film costars one by one and leaving their bodies, branded with a pentagram, for the cops to find. Maxine receives strange notes, videotapes that incriminate her in the crimes from the first movie. A couple of detectives are bugging her, and a private eye, hired by her black-gloved pursuer, is following her around. The private dick, played with sleazeball gusto by Kevin Bacon, clearly having a blast, is a highlight of the film; as is Giancarlo Esposito’s turn as Maxine’s agent, a million miles away from the Breaking Bad character that marked him among the greatest actors currently working.

The reveal of Maxine’s killer/stalker is startlingly effective, and the ending is cleverly ironic and extremely satisfying. Not only is this the gem of the trilogy, as I’d suspected it would be, it’s among the better horror movies I’ve seen in the past several years. Is it flawed? Sure. Goth’s southern accent turns itself on and off seemingly at random as does West’s use of audacious DePalma-style cinematography. Minor quibbles. Maxxxine is a blast. It almost makes me want to revisit X to see what, if anything, I missed. Almost.