Director Ti West and actor Mia Goth are back with a third film in the X horror series. MAXXXINE is a sequel to 2022’s X, while the second in the series, PEARL (also 2022), was a prequel. The first film, X, was a surprise hit at SXSW with audiences and critics, a kind of fun, tongue-in-cheek homage to both horror and porno films of the late 1970s and early 1980s, where the owner of a strip joint and his pals set out in make a porno film titled “The Farmers’ Daughters” at a rural house they have rented from an elderly couple, but without telling the old folks what kind of film they are making. Mia Goth plays in dual roles as one of the actresses in the porno, Maxine, and the elderly farm wife, Pearl. Following the traditions of horror films of that earlier era, their sexual misbehavior is punished by murder and mayhem.
MAXXINE is set in 1985 Hollywood, when the Night Stalker serial killer was roaming the streets. Mia Goth again plays Maxine, the sole survivor of the Texas massacre in the first movie, who is now working in the Hollywood adult film industry under the name Maxine Minx, while concealing her violent past. Maxine is ambitious to make the leap to mainstream movies via horror films, and gets her chance in an audition for “The Puritan II,” a sequel to a horror hit directed by Elizabeth Bender (Elizabeth Debicki).
The film opens with black-and-white home movie footage of Maxine as a child performing on stage while hear her unseen preacher daddy (Simon Prast), who encourages her ambitions to be the “star” of the church, which sets up a backstory for ambitious Maxine. Maxine’s ambitions to step up to stardom via horror is backed by her agent/lawyer Teddy Knight (Giancarlo Esposito). But her closest friend and confidant is Leon (musician Moses Sumney), a clerk at the X-rated video store under her upstairs apartment. Ambitious and hardworking Maxine has a second job, as a live performer at a peep show, and declines two co-workers’ separate invitations to join them at a party at a fancy house near the Hollywood sign. As the Nightstalker takes more victims and police detectives (Bobby Cannavale and Michelle Monaghan) investigate the murders, a mysterious man, wearing black leather gloves, pays to see Maxine at the peep show but reacts with anger at what he sees. Shortly after, a sleazy Southern private detective, Labat (Kevin Bacon), contacts Maxine with a threat to reveal her past if she doesn’t accept his mysterious employer’s invitation to the house under the Hollywood sign.
MAXXXINE is absolutely packed with movie references and shots of icon Hollywood locations, including famous backlot sets, which is actually the biggest thrill in this horror-homage thriller.
As you can guess from the cast, the third film in the series has a bigger budget and hence a more star-studded cast, including Kevin Bacon, Bobby Cannavale, Michelle Monaghan and Giancarlo Esposito.
Like the first film, MAXXXINE is less an actual scary horror movie than an homage to horror movies, and to soft porn videos and drive-in fare of the early 1980s era. The Hollywood setting means the filmmakers could include wonderful location shots, such as the set for PSYCHO, and both visual and dialog references to a host of classic thrillers, including CHINATOWN, often with a dark humor twist, such as one with a Buster Keaton impersonator.
Mia Goth again does the good job she did the the first two films, and adding the stars to the cast are a bonus. A particular standout is Kevin Bacon, as the oily New Orleans private detective bedeviling Maxine, in a sleazy version of Jack Nicholson’s character in CHINTOWN (complete with bandaged nose) crossed with a number of gangster film baddies, until he gets his comeuppance via Giancarlo Esposito’s “Better Call Saul”-ish agent/lawyer.
In fact, the too-few moments like that and the many other movie references, along with the chance to see behind to facades of some famous film sets, such as going inside through the doors of the mansion on the hill behind the Bates Motel, are the major thrills in MAXXXINE. Otherwise, the movie is not very suspenseful or scary, and it has less tongue-in-cheek humor or Hammer Film fake bloodiness than the first one (although cheesy Hammer Film effects do get a mention). Of course, there is some gore and violence, but much less than you might expect, and the tension and thrills are sparse, as are the dark humor moments. It’s not the first time an indie film has been diminished by a bigger budget, of course, but audiences expecting the same horror-homage entertainment as the first one are likely to feel let down. However, fans of Old Hollywood and classic thrillers will get some treats in the movie’s tour of backlots and back streets circa 1985.
MAXXXINE opens Friday, July 5, in theaters.
RATING: 2 out of 4 stars
