After a blood-curdling ordeal at a farmhouse in Texas, adult film star Maxine Minx’s road to true Hollywood stardom has been paved with nothing but trauma and blood. Still recovering from her encounter with Pearl and Howard Douglas in X, Maxine finally gets a chance to work on an actual Hollywood production: a B-movie horror sequel called The Puritan II. But amidst her change in luck is a series of mysterious murders plaguing Los Angeles, putting Maxine in the crosshairs of cops and private eyes, while the movements of the infamous Night Stalker set the city, and her hopes of getting the life she deserves, ablaze.
I was initially unsure of how MaXXXine would pan out, partly because of some bad feedback I saw of the film, and partly because I was worried it would hydroplane into some weird true crime stuff, given the mentions of the Night Stalker in promotional materials. Thankfully it doesn’t, not in the slightest. But, as the classic song “Bette Davis Eyes” played over the credits, I was left thinking one thing: people will either love this or hate this—no middle ground.
Having now seen it and seen people actually arguing leaving the theatre over the film, I can say, yeah, it’s not going to be for everyone. But for whom the Minx bell tolls, it tolls hard and wild. For me, it is a solid little movie that throws caution to the wind and becomes something pretty interesting because it’s slightly removed from its origins.
A STRAIGHTFORWARD CONTINUATION OF X, BUT A TONAL DEPARTURE
Though it is a continuation of the story that started in X, MaXXXine feels less like a cohesive third in the triad of films about scorned young women with dreams they’ll stop at nothing to attain. MaXXXine will divide audiences because of how radical the tonal change is from the preceding duology. This film is downright cartoonish at points, since it abandons hagsploitation and old Hollywood for an insane, snow-fueled ride into 80s mayhem.
I was fond of Pearl more than X because it was Ti West getting out of his usual mumbly zone of dark visuals and exploring old Hollywood’s technicolor glory days for what they really were: an unreal diversion built during a much bleaker time in history. I expected MaXXXine to dive more into those depths of unreality, something X and Pearl held as secondary to the film’s much more interesting conversations about sex, gender, and the breakdown of traditional American life in the post-war period, with all the byproducts that came with it (including the rise of modern Evangelical and fundamentalist movements).
MaXXXine, however, is much more interested in discussing that last topic, even coming with a handy montage at the beginning of the film to set the mood of a hazy, heat-stricken city clutched by the pangs of Reaganomics and Satanic Panic. That isn’t to say the film doesn’t have heavy thematic ties to the two movies that came before it (after all, all three are meant to invoke each other), but MaXXXine doesn’t mirror them as starkly as they mirror each other.
It’s in how MaXXXine explores these themes that it really lets you know: this is not a film-grain-pocked granny slasher contemplating aging, or a vibrant character study draped in a faded red white and blue dream. This is a fun, wild movie mocking the insanity of the era’s politics and supplementing it with gory, giallo-inspired horror.
TI WEST LOVES OLD HORROR (AND HE WANTS YOU TO KNOW IT)
That giallo aspect, of course, is a lot of aesthetic exercises in lighting and odd camera angles from Ti West and director of photography Eliot Rockett. The duo have worked well together for ages now, so why fix what isn’t broken right?
The film’s story is structured as a classic murder mystery would be, but takes plenty of pitstops exploring old horror in its many references and tributes: The Exorcist series, Four Flies on Grey Velvet, Blood and Black Lace, Pieces, and Psychoall get their due with West pouring out his admiration for the people who made those films with every flex of his cinematic muscles.
That’s not even getting into the fact that the special effects in this film are pure heat, with lots of practical effects that ooze blood as much as they ooze an appreciation for the craft. The way Weta managed to replicate the look of that bright red, paint-y blood used in 80s B-horror is so unserious-looking but so screen-accurate that I can’t help but love it.
MIA GOTH DELIVERS, BUT WITHOUT THE SAME SHINE SEEN IN PEARL
Of course, I can’t rule out the possibility this was all meant to be taken deadly serious and the film is not meant to be humorous. But I find that hard to believe given, in addition to the above factors, everybody in this movie is playing into the heightened character archetypes they’re assigned: the macho Los Angeles detective, the sleazy private eye, the hardass auteur director, everyone is playing a stock character in one way or another (albeit, fun ones and they’re doing a great job of it). Maybe the only one who isn’t is Mia Goth in the title role. Playing a stock character, that is, she’s still pretty good in this.
In X, Mia Goth had a brilliant double role as both villain and victim and got to showcase an incredible amount of talent with her physical acting as an aged Pearl. In the prequel, Goth had a sort of Vampire’s Kiss era Nicholas Cage charm; she was completely and utterly unhinged, but that virulent madness of hers was robed in a magnetism that most people couldn’t avoid being hooked by.
The Maxine she portrays in this film skews more towards her work in Pearl, but never really hits the same peaks of the buck-wild screaming she does at the projectionist or her hypnotizing speech to Mitsy in Pearl. She still has some incredible moments here though, with my favorite being a scene early on confronting a would-be attacker and holding nothing (and I mean absolutely nothing) back.
WHAT’S THE VERDICT FOR THE MOST UNIQUE SEQUEL THIS YEAR?
So, the bottom line you might be asking after all this is, “Should I go see it?”. For what it’s worth, I think it’s an obvious yes. But the major caveat you should have sussed out by now is that you should not go into this expecting anything like the previous two films. I would go so far as to say this is probably going to be the Scream 3 of Ti West’s filmography for how polarizing it is; if you like it, you love it, and if you don’t like it, you’ll want to burn down all the studios in Hollywood over it yourself. Unfortunately, I like Scream 3 a lot, so interpret that info as you will.
MaXXXine is a unique little follow-up to X and Pearl, with just the right wild cinematography and just the right wild performances to make it work. And it’s an hour and forty-four minutes of fun on tap– as long as you’re willing to indulge in something a little different, and willing to shed some notions of what your ideal X sequel “should” look like.
