MaXXXine
The third installment in a trilogy of horror films that pay homage to the cinematic styles of yore, Ti West’s “MaXXXine” is mostly an exercise in shallow window-dressing, a compendium of on-the-nose references with an inflated sense of its own significance. Where “X” paid tribute to ‘70s grindhouse, and “Pearl” toyed with ‘50s melodrama before becoming a farmhouse bloodbath, “MaXXXine” brings the franchise up to 1980s Los Angeles for a self-consciously sleazy rendition of that decade’s slashers (think Brian de Palma and Dario Argento). Porn going mainstream, the Satanic panic, and puritanical cries against sex and violence in film are all fodder for West’s rendering of Reagan-era Hollywood, but with tonally bungled storytelling and a lack of a fresh perspective on its material, this thriller tends to register as hollow mimicry.
Reprising her role from “X,” to which “MaXXXine” is a direct sequel, Mia Goth is the titular aspiring actress, a pornstar with dreams of leaving her seedy past behind and making it big in the movies. She is fiercely self-assured. In the opening scene, Maxine swaggers onto a soundstage where she auditions for and lands a role in a horror film, shedding fake tears and her top before a panel of executives without a hint of insecurity. Later, she brushes off a friend’s advice to not walk home at night alone (TV news headlines report that a serial killer is on the loose); when a Buster Keaton impersonator corners her in an alley with a knife, she makes him regret it. As the face of this sordid and flamboyantly gory trilogy, Goth’s screen presence has been notable for its fearlessness and wholehearted commitment. But in “MaXXXine,” her character’s confidence and determination can come off as self-parody. That’s less because of the choices that Goth makes, and more because of the script’s eye-rolling callbacks to “X” and “Pearl.”
While making her push into mainstream filmmaking, Maxine is haunted by the harrowing events detailed in “X.” In a scenery-chewing role, Kevin Bacon plays a private investigator, who threatens to derail Maxine’s career breakthrough with dirt about her past unless she heeds the demands of his client (at one point, a fairly useless reference to “Chinatown” shows him sporting a nose bandage and a beige suit). With flashbacks to “X,” West mines Maxine’s trauma for dramatic tension, but the effort is half-baked. His attention is elsewhere: a leather-clad killer is stalking Maxine, offing her friends through grand guignol murders that bring the police to Maxine’s door, while she just wants to appease the director of her film (Elizabeth Debicki) and not blow her shot at stardom (scenes on the Universal backlot play like an amusement park ride, including a stop at the house from “Psycho”). In weaving these strands together, “MaXXXine” becomes tonally confused. The earnest character shaping and B-movie pastiche don’t mix.
The reveal of the stalker’s identity is whiffed, segueing into a climactic shootout that sends the film in yet another new, equally flimsy direction. Grandiose final moments at the Hollywood sign bank on an investment in Maxine’s overarching story that I for one just don’t have. For a trilogy with such a gutsy performer at its center, you wish this installment gave her something more substantial to work with.
In theaters.