Mia Goth and Ti West took the world of arthouse horror by storm in 2022 with the one-two punch of \u201cX\u201d and \u201cPearl,\u201d distinct and original films within a bold, new cinematic universe.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cX\u201d was a grisly homage to \u201870s slasher flicks, while the prequel, \u201cPearl,\u201d was the duo\u2019s twisted take on the Technicolor of Douglas Sirk. Both were rich in style and narrative verve, with a thrillingly unhinged Goth at the center, playing multiple parts.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Now, we have the third part in the trilogy, \u201cMaXXXine,\u201d and it\u2019s a crushing disappointment. The style remains firmly in place \u2013 this time, it\u2019s a lurid look at Los Angeles in the mid-1980s \u2013 but there\u2019s nothing underneath it. West, as writer and director, has lovingly recreated this period of conspicuous consumption for maximum grime and sleaze. Far from glamourous, his Hollywood alternates between neon-soaked nighttime streets and bland backlots by day, with the hypnotic drone of Tyler Bates\u2019 synth score recalling the films of Mann and De Palma.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Night Stalker is on the loose, terrorizing innocent citizens who fear they\u2019ll be his next victim. And conservatives are complaining that movies and music are going to turn America\u2019s youth into Satanists. (Among the montage of period-specific news footage off the top is Twisted Sister lead singer Dee Snider testifying before the Senate about censorship.)\u00a0<\/p>\n
Within this volatile mix is Goth\u2019s Maxine Minx, whom we last saw fleeing the adult film set of \u201cX\u201d in 1979. Now it\u2019s 1985, and she\u2019s made her way to Hollywood, fueled by dreams of stardom and an unshakable sense of self. Porn shoots and peep shows have sufficed for a while, but she knows she\u2019s destined for something greater. An opening sequence in which she auditions for a legitimate picture -\u2013 the horror sequel \u201cThe Puritan II\u201d — suggests she may be right. Working once again with cinematographer Eliot Rockett, West shoots Maxine in a long, single take as she struts onto a soundstage in skin-tight denim, silhouetted against the haze of the San Fernando Valley sun.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
As we learned from the first film in this trilogy, she has that X factor \u2013 and that\u2019s precisely what makes \u201cMaXXXine\u201d so frustrating as it evolves. The core of the story is that various young women in Maxine\u2019s orbit are being lured to their gory deaths. We know she\u2019s not the killer, but a couple of LAPD detectives (Michelle Monaghan and Bobby Cannavale) are after her anyway to see if she can help them. So is a New Orleans private investigator hired by a sinister force from her past (Kevin Bacon in smoked aviators, doing a Foghorn Leghorn accent).\u00a0<\/p>\n
Oddly, this combination of pressures turns Maxine into a reactive figure, which is not her (or Goth\u2019s) strong suit. The very thing that made the character so captivating, both within this setting and the make-believe of movie acting, is her swagger, and the sense that she might do anything at any moment in the name of fame. \u201cMaXXXine\u201d strips her of that spark and renders her a passenger.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
This is especially clear in her many scenes with a commanding Elizabeth Debicki as the director of \u201cThe Puritan II,\u201d who drives Maxine around the Warner Bros. lot in a golf cart, delivering soliloquies about art and her desire to make \u201ca B-movie with A ideas.\u201d Perhaps that\u2019s what West is after, as well. But if he\u2019s addressing the handwringing over pop culture as a destructive force, he\u2019s not doing so in a particularly novel or insightful way.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Mia Goth and Ti West took the world of arthouse horror by storm in 2022 with the one-two punch of \u201cX\u201d and \u201cPearl,\u201d distinct and original films within a bold, new cinematic universe.\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cX\u201d was a grisly homage to \u201870s slasher flicks, while the prequel, \u201cPearl,\u201d was the duo\u2019s twisted take on the Technicolor of …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[50,48,37],"class_list":["post-1415","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-thriller-movies","tag-crime","tag-horror","tag-thriller"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1415","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1415"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1415\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1415"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1415"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1415"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}