Review: MaXXXine
Hollywood Is A Killer
INTRODUCTION
This is a quick review of the newly released film MaXXXine. Keep in mind this is but one of the many movies I watch every year, and that whatever initial grade I come up for this film could change for better or worse with time. To better keep up to date with both my thoughts on other movies and if my feelings on this film changed, follow me on Letterboxd.
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THE PLOT
Via Letterboxd: In eighties Hollywood, adult film star and aspiring actress Maxine Minx finally gets her big break. But as a mysterious killer stalks the starlets of Hollywood, a trail of blood threatens to reveal her sinister past.
QUICK REVIEW
Ti West directed two horror movies that released in the same year back in 2022, and both were instant overnight modern horror classics. I don’t know that I would say the same, but you can make a legit case that they combined were among the most impactful films of that amazing year for cinema. Those movies were X and its prequel, Pearl. The former a sort of “Texas Pornstar Massacre”, and the latter a kind of period-piece, female version of American Psycho. Anchoring both was Mia Goth who was great in the former, but absolutely delivered in the latter with a performance that made my personal ballot for Actress that year, alongside a couple critics’ groups nominations as well.
Personally I found X to be okay and Pearl to be just a little better, but Goth’s commitment and the eighties aesthetic of the incoming third film, MaXXXine, made me pretty excited about the possibilities for this one. Mia Goth back in one of these, Kevin Bacon as a sleazy private detective, eighties soundtrack and look, some mysterious masked killer going around chopping up poor sex-crazed protagonists and making you rethink being a sinner, what could go wrong?
Well unfortunately it can all fall apart thanks to an incredibly flat and boring story.
Does MaXXXine deliver an eighties look and feel? Yes. Does it offer a great soundtrack from the period? Yes. Does it have some gnarly kills? Yes. Is Mia Goth good? Yes. Is Kevin Bacon just as sleazy as I was hoping? Yes. Is the rest of the cast of characters intriguing? Yes. But those are small gems in a movie that is otherwise dull and doesn’t really attempt to be as different as the previous two films were.
Most of the movie is Maxine walking around scared of her own shadow, having hallucinations about Pearl (A storyline that goes nowhere), and trying to get away from Kevin Bacon much more than avoiding the killer that was marketed as being the film’s main antagonist. Again, Goth is good, but she can only do so much with her role. Ditto for what we get from Kevin Bacon, Elizabeth Debicki, Michelle Monaghan, Bobby Cannavale, or Giancarlo Esposito.
The movie has various promising ideas and subplots that unfortunately just linger in the background and eventually fade by the end after a big twist gives us a schlocky climax that made me start losing any benefit of a doubt I had for this film. I understand horror can be campy and not take itself seriously, but at a certain point you start to lose me.
I thought X was okay. I found Pearl to be decent. But MaXXXine was just a massive dull disappointment for me. The good things about it just can’t overcome a boring and lifeless script. I have to give it a mediocre C+. Easily the worst of the trilogy.
INITIAL GRADING
