Everywhere Maxine goes, men recognize her—but only men. No wonder; Maxine is a porn star, and men are her target audience. But recognition from weird guys isn’t what Maxine wants. She wants to be really famous. She often repeats a mantra: “I will not accept a life I do not deserve.” And Maxine is firmly convinced that she deserves more.
One wonders if there is a bit of Maxine’s creator, Ti Westin that feeling. In his latest film about her—his third to date featuring her blazing star, My Gothic — West has a frustrated horror director, played by Elizabeth Debickiannounces his intentions to make “a B movie with A ideas,” a concept that West himself has been pursuing for years. Sure enough, MaXXXine is another horror film with lofty ambitions. It fuses a pastiche of ’80s slashers with a slightly less literally cruel commentary on the movie business. West may not quite reach his goal — MaXXXine It’s another B movie with B+ ideas — but the effort is still commendable.
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West introduced Maxine in Xhis 2022 horror film about aspiring pornographers in the 1970s who are attacked by a demented old woman (also played by Goth, who has the best name in contemporary horror) and her devoted husband. Then came the prequel Pearlwith the gothic as X‘s killer in his younger days chasing his own dreams of movie stardom 100 years ago. Now comes MaXXXinewith the title character set in Hollywood in 1985, where she desperately tries to grab a piece of the “good life” she has longed for since she was a little girl.
To this end, Maxine auditions for a role in the sequel to a successful but controversial horror film called The Puritan. Her director, Elizabeth Bender (Debicki), sees something in Maxine. Despite her salacious resume (or perhaps because of it?), Elizabeth casts Maxine in a key role.
Her timing is fortuitous. (Or perhaps ominous?) As protesters picket outside the gates of the movie studio, a serial killer dubbed “The Night Stalker” is on the loose in Los Angeles. The satanic undertones of his crimes echo the on-screen murders in The Puritan. And wouldn’t you know it? As pre-production progresses, Maxine’s friends start turning up dead, marked with pentagrams. Is life imitating art in the darkest of ways?
The premise of a mad killer chasing the star of a mad killer movie gives West the license to make his most meta horror film yet. He borrows liberally from the classics; a few De Palma split screens here, some giallo-style cinematography there. One chase scene snakes through the Universal backlot, where Maxine races through the Western town of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood and then ends up at the Bates Motel Psychowhere she is pursued by a sleazy private detective (a fried southerner Kevin Bacon) with a bandage on his nose like Jack Nicholson in Chinatown. Given that West’s breakout film as a director was another ’80s Satanic Panic pastiche, 2009’s The Devil’s HouseWest may even be paying homage to himself at times here.
The references fly constantly, but they don’t amount to much more than a series of Easter eggs for horror devotees. If West had any grand ideas in mind here beyond a very mild critique of Hollywood’s insatiable appetite for young talent (and that young talent’s corresponding hunger for fame), it’s not really there. And the final reveal of the Night Stalker’s identity, while logical in retrospect, is also a bit of a letdown.
The moments in MaXXXine that break through the clutter of callbacks are very similar to the best in X It is Pearl: The scenes where West steps out of the way and shines the spotlight on Goth (sometimes literally, in this case). With her slight frame and a face dotted with beauty marks, Maxine makes for an unconventional but undeniably appealing horror heroine. In an early sequence, Maxine ends up walking home alone at night and is approached by a man inexplicably dressed like Buster Keaton. She turns the tables on her attacker—and throughout the film, Maxine refuses to play the role of the stereotypical horror victim in need of rescue. That’s a good thing, because the cops trying to solve the Night Stalker murders, played by Michelle Monaghan and Bobby Cannavale, are largely useless and used mostly as comic relief.
MaXXXine looks good and sounds great. (Its soundtrack of melancholic pop hits is destined to be played at horror-themed Halloween parties from the ’80s until the end of time.) West clearly understands this era and the kinds of horror hits it produced. He has a compelling leading lady and creative partner in Goth. But something still feels missing.
West winks at the audience so much that there isn’t much time for him to stare into the darkness like a truly scary horror movie does; MaXXXineThe shocking moments are surprisingly few and far between. As a result MaXXXine is rarely as disturbing or as effective as the previous films in this series. I guess you could say it feels like it’s missing an X factor.
RATING: 6/10
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