MaXXXine Review

“Offers enough fun gory moments that those who loved X and Pearl might forgive the wonky ending”

(Note: There are minor spoilers in this review for the previous two films in this series, X and Pearl.)

By this point, fans of Ti West’s X and Pearl should be well aware that there’s been a third movie waiting in the wings, which takes Mia Goth’s Maxine Minx – essentially the lead of X – to Hollywood, where she continues to try to become a star. As we reunite with her in 1985, Maxine is auditioning for The Puritan II, a horror sequel with a woman director (Elizabeth Debicki). Most of Hollywood is talking about the grisly murders by the Night Stalker, while Maxine’s history has turned up to jeopardize her own big break into real (i.e. non-adult) movies, as people are dying all around her.

This is definitely more of a follow-up to X than it is to Pearl, even if that still plays an important role as the trilogy’s prequel, if only to show how much Maxine and Pearl have in common despite being decades apart in time and age. If you’ve seen X and Pearl than you know of Goth’s enormous range she delivers as an actor in both those movies. That continues into MaXXXine, as she’s a very different person than when we last saw her in X. There’s still something quite dark and disturbed about her, maybe due to what she went through just a few years earlier, but there’s also a similar drive Pearl had to become a star that led to her killing spree.

In terms of the new characters, the real standout is Kevin Bacon as a sleazy private detective sent to trail Maxine, something that leads to her responding quite violently. Other great characters include the detectives played by Bobby Canavale and Michelle Monaghan, who I loved so much, I would totally want Max do a period crime procedural based around their characters. Another stand-out is Moses Sumney as Maxine’s nerdy video store clerk bestie, Leon, plus there are many other characters, like Lily Collins as another actor on the film, mostly smaller roles but each of them generally having some great scenes. 

Possibly one of the more impressive aspects of MaXXXine is how West and his team recreate the seedy side of L.A. in the mid-80s, something that most people who see this will only have seen in movies. In line with nods to horror films like Texas Chainsaw Massacre in X, West throws in references to two of my favorite horror films of all time, Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho and Brian De Palma’s Body Double – the irony of course being that De Palma was regularly (and rightfully) accused of swiping from Hitchcock. This usually would have been enough for me to fall in love with this movie, and it certainly made me want to see it again, since there’s a scale to the movie that we haven’t seen since West made his Western, In a Valley of Violence. 

One also has to give tremendous kudos for West’s ability to create a film trilogy where each installment is so different from the last one, which means you don’t necessarily have to watch the other two movies before seeing this one.

The film’s last act is where things go a bit wonky, to the point where I’m not sure the big turn can properly be tied into the Night Stalker killings, as hard as the movie tries to. Because that aspect of the film doesn’t work, it may leave some viewers wanting, because there has been so much proper build-up to a resolution that just doesn’t quite work.

MaXXXine doesn’t quite stick the landing for this otherwise exemplary horror trilogy, though it offers enough fun gory moments that those who loved X and Pearl might forgive the wonky ending, since the rest of the movie has been so entertaining up until that point.

Rating: 7/10

MaXXXine will be released nationwide on July 5.