Ti West brings us to the eighties to close out his unorthodox horror trilogy. After a prequel focused on the first film’s antagonist, we conclude with the continued saga of Maxine Minx, X‘s final girl.
When we last saw Maxine Minx, soon-to-be porn star and would be superstar, she had just survived a horrific slaughter on a Texas farm and set off to pursue her film career. Those events are about to catch up with her, as are some demons from her youth. She won’t be easily derailed from her dreams, however, so something will have to give. Those dreams involve making the most of a part in a controversial horror sequel called The Puritan II, a gig that Minx scores in between her day job making stag films, her night job stripping in peep shows, and a little cocaine habit that helps her keep her hectic schedule. Unfortunately, the infamous Night Stalker is making the Los Angeles streets a dangerous place to be, and a slimy private investigator is threatening to expose her blood-soaked past if she doesn’t meet with his mysterious client. Oh, and if that isn’t enough, Maxine receives a snuff film featuring two of her co-workers who were attending a private party in the Hollywood Hills.
Ti West and Mia Goth prove yet again that they are a formidable duo in their final entry into the X film trilogy. West crafts an iconically sleazy backdrop with his depiction of 1985 L.A., complete with a synth-heavy score punctuated by the occasional 80’s radio hit. Goth delivers a steely performance as the hyper-focused Maxine, striking a nice balance between badassery and fear, both rightly-earned as a survivor of the previous events in the series. Regardless of whether she is punking a would-be assaulter with nonchalance, calling on her connections to help solve a more sinister conundrum, or wading into the deep waters alone in the face of an apparent murder cult, her force of will remains her defining characteristic. She will pay any price for fame, and no manner of violent intimidation will detour her from the role she sees as her big break. For the first time in the series, however, Goth has a rival in terms of most valuable actor. One real life superstar that got their break in horror is Kevin Bacon, and he plays the southern PI, John Labat, who is heavily involved in the various plot strands of the film. Nobody who has ever appeared in a movie can claim to be having more fun than Bacon is in this role. He plays Labat as a cross between Looney Tunes’ Foghorn Leghorn and Harvey Keitel’s greasy pimp from Taxi Driver. Every tortured syllable or lecherous sneer from Bacon is a miracle, and it is possibly my favorite performance of the year, even if I can’t claim that it is the best.
Maxxxine, for as much as I enjoyed it, does have its pacing and plotting issues. It is somewhat overstuffed, a little bit of more-is-less, if you will. I found the Night Stalker subplot to be a nice thematic echo to the main plot, and a reminder of the real life danger that sex workers face, but it probably could have been extracted entirely to the overall benefit of the film. I also found the reveal of the main villain overly obvious, and in a movie packed with performances of the caliber of Goth, Bacon, and a very game Giancarlo Esposito, it felt underwhelming overall. If I had to rank them, I probably place this entry in the middle of the pack, right after X, even though I think several individual elements of Maxxxine represent peaks for the series. When I think about the trilogy overall, any specific gripes sort of melt away and I am left marveling at what West has accomplished with Goth as his muse. The choice to have her play two characters in the first film, go back to the origin story for one of them in the second, and then flash forward to conclude with the story of the other one is really interesting, and the parallel obsessions of Pearl and Maxine offer plenty of interesting contrast and compare analysis that will allow these movies to endure. Goth is a powerhouse, already a top 10 scream queen on the back of these movies, by my estimation. Could you name a better horror trilogy? Even if we include the first three movies of any longer horror series, I’m not sure what I would place above it – A Nightmare on Elm Street, Alien and Halloween each have a bit of a clunker in their first three films that would probably exclude them, and I’m struggling to come up with an alternative choice (note, I haven’t yet seen the highly buzzed about Terrifier trilogy… yet.) So even if you don’t think that any of the movies in this series are all-time classics, which I think is a valid opinion, they definitely add up to more than the sum of their parts. Maxxxine offers a terrific conclusion to the entire enterprise, and I’m excited to see where both Mia Goth and Ti West go next.
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