MaXXXine

Viewers do not have to see X or Pearl to enjoy this third instalment in director Ti West’s horror trilogy but it helps, as there’s a clear throughline between the three films about the collision between aspiring actors chasing their dreams and the grimy nature of the industry.

X followed adult film star Maxine Minx (Mia Goth), whose film shoot at a guesthouse on an elderly couple’s farm in rural Texas descended into a Texas Chainsaw Massacre-esque nightmare when the landowner Pearl (also played by Goth) discovered a morbid curiosity in Maxine after seeing she looks exactly the same as her younger self. As we learnt from the second film in the series, which jumped from 1979 back to the 1910s, Pearl’s own dreams of becoming a film star were shattered by both the industry’s toxicity and her own self-sabotage; her bloodlust shaped her destiny to a quiet life out of Hollywood.

In this closing feature, set in 1985, Maxine is as determined as ever to become a successful crossover star and enters Los Angeles with the sins of her past catching up to her, as a sleazy private investigator (Kevin Bacon, chewing the scenery with the delight) informs her that authorities are looking for her following the events in Texas. On the other hand, she’s still not out of sight of another potential killer, as the news cycle reports that the Night Stalker is on the loose. Maxine has seen it all, though, and the film finds its most wonderfully subversive moments when seeing its protagonist successfully evade the dangers of the city, beginning with a gnarly murder of a creepy guy.

As with the previous two movies, which did an incredible job at mimicking the visual and aural aesthetic of the cinematic periods they were set in, MaXXXine is total catnip for fans of 80s genre cinema, capturing every smokey alley, neon sign and archetypal douchebag that one expects, and finds an optimal coda to the heroine’s journey by placing her hopes and aspirations in the context of the Satanic Panic – is everyone seeing a porn star/massacre survivor as a walking red flag? Though it doesn’t surprise as often as X nor is as inventive as Pearl, MaXXXine is a fun trilogy closer that cements the series in the horror hall of fame, which is a great irony considering the central conceit of these movies.

Musanna Ahmed

MaXXXine is released nationwide on 5^th July 2024.

Watch the trailer for MaXXXine here: