MAXXXINE 🔪🩸 REVIEW:

          In 1980s Hollywood, adult film star and aspiring actress Maxine Minx finally gets her big break. However, as a mysterious killer stalks the starlets of Los Angeles, a trail of blood threatens to reveal her sinister past. Ti West’s X was a surprisingly subversive and provocative detour from the usual slasher movie affair and its prequel Pearl was an absolutely fascinatingly dark character study that explored Mia Goth’s titular villain in her rise to stardom in early Hollywood during the influenza pandemic. Both films complimented one another in a logical manner with Pearl providing a lot of context for the events and character motives in X. With Maxxxine, Ti West caps off his uniquely twisted slasher trilogy in a bloody entertaining way, with outrageously fun performances, a nostalgic 80’s B-movie atmosphere/aesthetic, and plenty of relevant commentary about Hollywood and the film industry in general. This movie takes place about six years after the events of X if I’m not mistaken, with fame hungry Maxine Minx leaving the porn industry to pursue acting in mainstream Hollywood. That being said, there are some loose ends from the conclusion of X that follow Maxine throughout this film, making her journey a wild one, to say the least. Mia Goth once again kills it (sometimes literally) and it’s very clear how well she works with director Ti West. While I would say Goth’s performance in Pearl was her most impressive (especially because of that harrowing ten minute monologue), she still delivers the passion, ferocity, and conviction we’ve come to expect from her as the lead. She snorts coke in her powder room, pesters her agent played brilliantly by Giancarlo Esposito about landing roles in horror, and brags to her friends about how she’s going to be this world famous superstar. What makes Maxine work as a compelling main character is actually her backstory involving her father and conservative Christian upbringing. More on that later.

          Maxxxine is a movie that tells its audience right to their faces what Hollywood is all about. The film takes place in 1985 during the height of the Satanic Panic and is clearly trying to convey a message with the protestors of the in-movie horror flick that Maxine is acting in who are accusing Hollywood of corrupting children and indulging in Satanic rituals. Perhaps the intention of Ti West was to make fun of how “religious fanatics” get all worked up about the entertainment industry for no apparent reason, but as someone who knows the industry fairly well and what goes on behind the scenes, a lot of the accusations made by the so called “religious fanatics” are actually true. It’s as if the film is subliminally telling us that these things are true by attempting to make it seem like an over exaggeration. I personally found this predictive programming to be fairly interesting and eye opening, even if the message itself wasn’t quite as clear as West intended it to be. I find all that stuff surrounding satanic cults committing mass atrocities and Hollywood’s attempt to dispel the truth by labeling speculation as baseless conspiracy theories to be incredibly interesting and ever so relevant to the darkness hovering over the industry today. Of all three films in this trilogy, the supporting cast in Maxxxine is by far the most dynamic and memorable, with Kevin Bacon in a scene stealing albeit brief villainous role, Elizabeth Debicki playing the stern director of "The Puritan II, and Bobby Cannavale and Michelle Monaghan as two LA detectives investigating the murders committed by the mysterious “Night Stalker.” 

          The score by Tyler Bates is the perfect throwback to 80’s neo-noir, blending eerie synth with ominous and foreboding electronic cues. The gore in here is extremely grotesque, with one moment in particular at the beginning involving Maxine stomping on an assailant’s private parts being super explicit. There is also a scene in which a character is crushed inside a car with a car crusher and there are zero cutaways from it. Some seriously gruesome shit. While the first two thirds had me completely enthralled and on the edge of my seat, this is one of those cases where the build up, suspense, and mystery are more interesting than the actual big reveal itself. The third act reveal of who the Night Stalker was made total sense, but I personally found it to be somewhat predictable and not that surprising of a revelation. The film sometimes doesn’t know what it’s trying to say and the exposition dumps from the villains are rather preposterous, if not outright absurd. Still found it amusing and entertaining though. Maxxxine is by far the most ambitious film in the trilogy in regards to production design, cast, and storytelling. Not all of it comes together cleanly, but more than enough of it does for me to recommend it to genre enthusiasts. If you did not like X or Pearl, Maxxxine will most certainly not win you over. If you’re overly sensitive to things like extreme gore, graphic nudity, or heavy on screen drug usage, I would suggest watching something else. Overall, while not all of its messages come across clearly, Maxxxine is a thrillingly fitting conclusion to Ti West’s uniquely twisted slasher trilogy, utilizing its 80’s B-movie style/aesthetic to the fullest, exploring the darkness of the film industry, and showcasing Mia Goth’s talent to the max.