MAXXXINE CONCLUDES A TRILOGY OF HORROR FILMS from director Ti West, star Mia Goth, and studio A24 that constantly feels as though it has something kind of interesting to say but isn’t sure precisely how to say it or why what it’s saying matters.
X (March 2022) had an interesting-enough premise: Imagine The Texas Chain Saw Massacre if it involved the young adults involved in a porn shoot meeting their ends at the hands of a demented old woman with delusions of stardom. There was something sly and winking here, a meta consideration of the ways in which horror and skin flicks both offer cheapo thrills and allow their creators to fancy themselves auteurs with delusions of their own. But West didn’t do much with it aside from drawing the comparison. Maxine Minx (Goth) was the sole survivor of that film’s bloodbath, most of the bodies dropping at the hands of the elderly Pearl (also Goth, in old-age makeup).
Pearl (September 2022) was a prequel, and in it, we saw how the allure of the big screen, the beauty of those on it, and the desire felt by those who watched could curdle the mind of an impressionable young thing looking to escape the drudgery of farm life. It helped, naturally, that Pearl was already a bit curdled, showing signs of sociopathy (animal abuse: check) and mental unwellness (making love to a scarecrow: uh, check) even before the Projectionist (David Corenswet, soon-to-be Superman) showed up in her sleepy town with his secret stag film. Again, there are some interesting ideas here about the allure of stardom and the frustration a certain type of person feels when she finds out she isn’t as special or talented or desired as she thought herself to be—and Goth delivers a knockout monologue demonstrating just that nuttiness—but that idea is never really teased out.
MaXXXine—which picks up a few years after the events of X and finds the titular Minx attempting to make the transition from porn starlet to legit actress amid the real-life horror of the Night Stalker even as her hopes of progression are threatened by a lurking private eye (Kevin Bacon)—again feints at some interesting ideas. The grimy side of Hollywood as represented by the adult industry and the ways in which the young and idealistic are fodder for sickos and killers; the supposed hypocrisy of the moral crusaders denouncing Hollywood’s seduction of the innocent; and the absurdity of ’80s buddy cop flicks. West luxuriates in long tracking shots aping the style of Brian De Palma while occasionally giving the image a fuzzy VHS-washed quality. The vibes, they’re Reaganesque.
If X was The Texas Porn Star Massacre, then MaXXXine is Bawdy Double. If X was highlighting the similarities between horror and porn, then MaXXXine is highlighting the similarities between the moral rot of Hollywood and the moral grandstanding of the holy rollers. But once again, it feels as though the ideas are merely gestured at, noted, rather than interrogated or played with. Hell, the conclusion of this film is so on the nose and so cursory it almost feels like West is making fun of the people who spend all their time complaining about the Moral Majority’s placard-wielding whiners. It certainly feels like West is making fun of the 1980s buddy-cop genre during the climactic shootout.
The emptiness of the picture is amplified by Goth’s empty performance. I am a huge fan of Goth, and have been since A Cure for Wellness. She’s great in Pearl. I genuinely cackled during her villainous turn in Brandon Cronenberg’s Infinity Pool. But she’s just given nothing to do here. Even her big hero moments come across as . . . blah. Maxine Minx simply isn’t a very interesting character. I find myself wondering, not for the first time, if that’s not West’s ultimate point, if this whole trilogy isn’t about the randomness of fame and the delusion of the undeserving. Maybe the point is that celebrity attaches itself to uninteresting people who tell themselves the universe owes them stardom and, gosh darn it, they’re going to get it no matter what.
MaXXXine looks great and has that proper 1980s dinginess. There are some fine practical effects. Bacon gives an amusingly deranged performance as a Cajun private eye who finds he can’t handle the pressure of his assignment. Giancarlo Esposito is clearly having fun as a crooked agent and Bobby Cannavale is clearly having fun hamming it up as a cop who wished he could play one on the big screen. But the whole thing feels kind of empty, and it’s not clear to me how intentional that emptiness is.