‘MaXXXine’ Review: Once Upon a Time in Ti West's Hollywood
When Ti West unveiled X at SXSW in 2022, nobody knew his straightforward slasher flick would spur the first A24 film trilogy. Following the prequel, Pearl, we reached the climax with MaXXXine, which sees West finally getting Mia Goth out of Texas (or New Zealand, where they filmed) and into Tinseltown during the ‘80s.
Credit: Justin Lubin | Photos courtesy of A24
R: Strong violence, gore, sexual content, graphic nudity, language and drug use.
Runtime: 1 Hr and 44 Minutes
Production Companies: Motel Mojave, Access Entertainment
Distributor: A24
Director: Ti West
Writer: Ti West
Cast: Mia Goth, Elizabeth Debicki, Moses Sumney, Michelle Monaghan, Bobby Cannavale, Halsey, Lily Collins, Giancarlo Esposito, Kevin Bacon
Release Date: July 5th, 2024
It’s 1985 in L.A. Horror movies graduated into the mainstream, St. Elmo's Fire is the number one film in America, and the Satanic Panic reached new heights. Hollywood itself has become a cesspool for crime and debauchery.
Following the events of X, Maxine Minx (Mia Goth) made Hollywood her new home and has had a rising career within the porn industry. After all these years as an adult actress, Maxine lands a starring role in an upcoming studio horror flick, The Puritan II, under no-nonsense filmmaker Elizabeth Bender (Elizabeth Debicki). Her winning streaks hit a wall as Maxine’s past rears its head. She finds herself at the epicenter of a series of serial murders across Hollywood during the same time as the Night Stalker’s reign.
Playing with a larger budget, Ti West replicates the ‘80s Hollywood era with a passionate pastiche. If X was his attempt to pay homage to the low-budget slasher flicks of the ‘70s but with a contemporary campiness, MaXXXine widens his net to encapsulate all of ‘80s culture. In any other location that isn't Hollywood, the film would be an exercise in nostalgia. But MaXXXine depicts the era organically akin to, say, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood without it feeling like original characters from fan fictions is activating within a revisionist piece.
Tonally and stylistically, MaXXXine is a vast departure from its predecessors. West echoed Brian De Palma's Body Double, and you will either dig it, considering that the current cinema landscape wouldn't dream of mimicking De Palma, or write off the entry as "We have Body Double at home." From the noir-styled plotting and the sleazy erotica nature of the world, it makes sense that Minx's Hollywood has a De Palma-styled grime. But West apes the hell out of him, down to featuring a Frankie Goes to Hollywood needle drop during a neon-soaked set piece.
Ti West captures the B-movie flair playing within the Tinseltown setting as Maxine aims for stardom. Sometimes it's with a gleeful gloat, getting clearance to be on the Psycho movie set, or incorporating the Hollywood sign for a set piece. You can feel the filmmaker’s giddiness getting to play in this Hollywood playground, yet it evokes the same energy as The Lonely Island and T-Pain when they were on a boat.
Pearl might've been the most complicated character in the trilogy, but Minx is the more enticing one. She navigates the cesspool with a strong-willed, self-sufficient, can-do attitude in a rather demanding town ready to see her crack. I adored seeing her navigate Hollywood as a certified hustler, making her name, going job to job throughout the long nights. Like Minx, Goth is a fucking star and carries the film, coated with irresistible grade-A confidence, making her decisions often look ambiguous, as you can never tell what's going on in her mind or how she'll go about a certain situation. We already know what she's capable of and the film reminds you in a ball-busting manner, to not fuck with her.
Once Maxine's traumatic past catches up to her via a VHS tape of the porn flick she made in X and a few serial murders drawing close to her orbit, West utilizes it to humanize her. She experiences traumatic flashbacks to the Texas massacre she survived in stylish, horrifying imagery. Although West doesn’t deepen her to her full potential – scenes with her friends Tabby (Halsey) and Leon (Moses Sumney) could’ve been mined for stronger character development – Maxine feels like the most realized character out of these movies. This is also how I admit that Pearl wasn’t interesting to me as a character study even though the rest of the internet seems to adore it. I’m always here for a story about a hustler just trying to get by and even though there’s a hollowness to the motifs it plays with, I still had a solid time watching Maxine’s caper unfold.
Beyond Minx, the supporting players surrounding her are as enticing and fun. Kevin Bacon is basically playing Sergeant Ray Duquette from Wild Things again, but doing his best Colonel Sanders. With all her 6’3” strength, Elizabeth Debicki is a standout, overpowering Maxine’s dominating persona with a stern demeanor. Giancarlo Esposito finally gets to tap into his silly side as Minx’s caring and quasi-scary agent and it’s so delightful whenever he and Goth share the screen.
Compared to X and Pearl, MaXXXine is by far the weakest entry. As ambitious as West tries to be regarding its new expansive scope, the film lacks the originality to set it apart from the movies he desperately wants to leave his mark on. Say what you will about X and Pearl’s familiarity, they had a signature… X-factor (no pun intended) to them. Nothing within MaXXXine reaches the heights of “BUT I’M A STAR!” or any of the gross kills in X.
I commend him for doing his Brian De Palma cosplay, capturing the visual grittiness in the lighting and cinematography. But the story lacks the same grit that’s put into the filmmaking. West is playing with this fascinating era in Hollywood history, and while he’s not overbearing with how he portrays the culture, the motifs lack importance. The Night Stalker reign and the Satanic Panic atmosphere are all white noises reminding you of what could’ve been in a much more ambitious movie.
Come the second act, West can’t seem to choose between a neo-noir detective plot and a Hollywood drama with a message about the exploitative nature of the industry, and the attempt at combining them muddles the story. It hurts to see how this shooting star fizzles with a very uninspired climax. The greatest wasted potential lies in the revealed perpetrator’s predictability, along with a less-than-exciting finale that pales in comparison to the predecessors. West constantly flexes his bigger price tag, exclaiming “Look at what I can do with a bigger budget,” when we’re all aware of what greatness he can accomplish with less.
Hollow in text and originality but full of visual pastiche not seen in recent Hollywood-related movies, MaXXXine is a subdued final entry to Ti West’s X trilogy, compensating with a solid character piece led by Mia Goth’s X-factor.
Rating: 3/5 | 64%
