By Ben Bright
SALUTATIONS!!!
It’s approximately two thirds of the way to Halloween (my Christmas) and it has already been a great year for the horror genre with films such as Arcadian, Immaculate, and The First Omen along with the upcoming gem that is supposed to be terrifying, Longlegs.
But I am not here to write about those. I am here to write about the third and final installment to Ti West’s “X” Trilogy including X, Pearl, and now MaXXXine. Circling around Maxine Minx played by Mia Goth (Infinity Pool, X, Pearl).
Starting in 1979 where Maxine Minx, and upcoming porn star who is the lone survivor of a film shoot in rural Texas outside of Houston and this installment concluding the series in Los Angeles in 1985.
The 1980’s were an interesting time that we associate with bright colors, neon, big hair, The “Brat-Pack” movies, New Wave bands like the Petshop Boys and New Order, and when MTV still showed music videos.
But there were also negatives associated with the 1980’s. The violent crime rate in America through the late mid to late 1980’s was twice as high as it is currently, the rise of the crack epidemic and AIDS, pollution, and the infamous “Satanic Panic” where people were saying that horror movies and heavy metal music were turning your kids into murderous Satan worshippers.
That is the framework for MaXXXine.
The film begins with Maxine auditioning a role in an upcoming horror film and we are led to believe it that she really nailed it and that she is trying to move out of the porn industry and become a full-fledged movie star.
As her strides to go mainstream instead of continuing to strip, participate in her job as a peep show actress, and starring in pornographic films appear to begin to start bearing fruit, complications, to say the least, begin to arise most notably people in her orbit start being murdered.
One day she is visited by a private investigator played by Kevin Bacon (Animal House, Stir of Echoes) who is representing someone powerful and if she doesn’t meet with him, he’ll make sure that she never works in film again.
I’ll leave it that, but the following chain of events is not a pretty journey.
I really enjoyed this film and I believe that it is the best of the series unlike other trilogies where the third installment exists primarily to wrap up the story. Frankly I wouldn’t even view The X series as a trilogy, more like three standalone films with varying themes and styles held together by a common denominator, Pearl.
The first thing that caught me right off the bat was its soundtrack. The tunes in the soundtrack. Five minutes in, Maxine struts out of her audition and mouths off to the other candidates for the role confidently as “Gimme All Your Lovin’” by ZZ Topp plays as she peels out of the parking lot. Tyler Bates’ (Atomic Blonde, John Wick 4) score also fits right in with the setting as well
Additionally, I found director Ti West’s directorial style and Eliot Rockett’s cinematography to be much more stylized in this installment to the series.
Now let’s talk about the “elephant in the trailer”, the kills. Yes, we must address what that topic. If you have a sensitive stomach, you might want to cover your eye at many moments because, like X, it gets graphic. With healthy use of practical effects. One I found fascinating because it was a completely shameless (but not unwelcome) nod to the Giallo films of Dario Argento (Suspiria, Inferno). It felt like it could be a deleted scene from his 1975 classic Deep Red. In fact, it was very Gialloesque in most of its kills with the use of colored lighting and the only part of the killer you see is arms and black gloves.
Like Brian De Palma’s Carrie, which is pigeonholed into the horror genre (and fits perfectly there), which is more of a drama about bullying, MaXXXine will be thrown in as a, “slasher film”, but to me it works just as well if not more, to me at least, as a Los Angeles neonoir crime thriller in the vein of Chinatown or Seven and not particularly a garden variety slasher.
Overall, I give it a very positive review. Aside from a couple of brief scenes where the pacing gets a little funky, It has many merits to it and also doesn’t overstay it’s welcome at a tight 1 hour and 44 minutes.
Even if you haven’t seen X or Pearl, I would recommend this due to its stand-alone nature where it gives you all the information that you need to sit back and enjoy the film.
And that, as the late Paul Harvey used to say, “is the rest of the story”
