As the year begun there were four big movies I was anticipating above all else – Dune: Part Two, Challengers, Deadpool & Wolverine, and MaXXXine. The others didn’t disappoint, and the time has come to tick off the last of them ✅ I feel like so many YouTubers are wanting to discuss X, Pearl and MaXXXine, more than for your average movie trilogy, and I’m here for it. This horror spectacle has popped up out of nowhere, and captured our imaginations through its righteousness and quality. The buzz around Mia Goff is so hot right now, and deservedly so – in these movies especially she is fearless, transformative, beautiful. I’ve seen X three times now, and I reckon it gets better every time I watch it. Because the first time you watch a movie, the more you’re watching the “what” is happening; and only later does the percentage of your focus shift to the “how”. X is so stylistically and thematically put together, it’s marvelous. I’ve now seen Pearl twice, and I was initially disappointed by the movie’s style over substance. It’s still very good, especially in that regard, but when promised a backstory for the older character of Pearl, I still wish for a little more. Yet now I know not to have so many expectations for MaXXXine – it could hold a new narrative, or it will more likely be another scope on a genre film infusing it with horror. In any case, I’m a dog at my bowl, panting and salivating, entrusting in what Ti West and Mia Goff can give me 🐶 Woof! Woof!
Maxine (Mia Goff) is at auditions for a big Hollywood movie role, after exhausting her talents as a porn star, and cocky about taking the next step. She dominates, and signs to take lead in a horror sequel, The Puritan II. But working girls close to Maxine are going missing, winding up dead, while a mysterious figure in dark leather gloves follows Maxine’s exploits closely. We also see how Maxine is confident but still haunted by the final words said to her an elderly Pearl, concerning how she will never make it, and she’ll wind up bitter and decrepit just like Pearl. This movie boasts a bigger cast of established players this time around, perhaps sensing to get in on the action – Kevin Bacon, Bobby Cannavale, Michelle Monaghan, Lily Collins, Halsey, Giancarlo Esposito, and Elizabeth Debicki.
An eighties aesthetic! Now, why didn’t I think of that? It’s the perfect next step 🤩 And I just want to take this opportunity to write how the soundtracks across all three of these movies are divine; another aesthetic choice that always captures the mood quite brilliantly ☺ I’ll cut right to the ending, and I suppose it was just too tempting not to include the evangelical preacher, Earnest Miller (Simon Prast) as the big baddie, since it’s revealed he is Maxine’s father at the end of X, and to charming affect. Times where this movie’s narrative direction may’ve felt fantastical, can be cradled by the knowledge that MaXXXine assumes the style of an eighties movie, where these ideas fit right in. Coming away from these movies, I’d probably conclude that X’s 70s inspiration is all about atmosphere; then MaXXXine’s 80s is about going big and being showy. Thereby, the villain choice is helped along by Prast’s performance going totally over the top, especially when first confronting Maxine, revealing that he’s the black glove straining stalker psycho in the third act. I like how the movie includes comparison to a real life murder scenario that was also talking place in the eighties too – the Night Stalker, a serial killer made familiar to me through keeping my eye on American Horror Story 💀😈 This movie also moves Maxine into the Sidney Prescott category of repeat Scream Queens, in that now multiple killers have aimed to murder her and missed. But unlike Scream’s best heroine, Maxine is certainly more willing to take matters into her own hands 👊 Maxine more channels Annette Benning from American Beauty, in that she “refuses to be a victim”! Very rock & roll.
This movie’s plot does sort’ve wind down a familiar road, where the movie offers its character a big opportunity, but a ticking clock or distraction elsewhere threatens to derail their entire life. I was watching this movie really wanting Maxine to succeed, and probably guessed she wouldn’t, seeing that this be a horror movie and all, where “devastating consequences” are usually the main course. But to my surprise, no, the movie rewards Maxine breaking the mold, and Pearl’s sullen life does not repeat, nor has her prediction come true. Here’s one for the good guys! The movie’s ending does recontextualize the entire trilogy with a sense of optimism, now knowing that Maxine will succeed despite the many obstacles and steep climb ahead of her, and I think that’s grand. Therefore, along with the neon glam and slasher elements predicating this movie, there also contains a hearty sprinkling of those eighties “coming into their own” stories, like Dirty Dancing and Flashdance, which means the movie can have a happy ending where the other two movies do not 🤗
I loved it. Ultimately, I don’t think as much happens across the course of the movie, compared to most movies I’d consider in the top echelon of cinematic experiences, but I was swept up in the style, and felt cozily comforted in a familiar place, by a franchise I adore. I think Ti West’s handling of horror imagery, and being able to pay homage in recycling them in a personal way, is really quite brilliant. And whilst I might mirror the sentiment of the finale of this movie, I would hope that this franchise has elevated Mia Goff into becoming a familiar name, set to storm Hollywood! Surprisingly, I found MaXXXine to be similar to X in that we really don’t have the main character pushing the narrative – the events of the movie sort’ve unfold around her, and it’s up to Maxine to just navigate through them; unlike Pearl, where the movie is a character study, all about the actions of the character, and which lends to Mia Goff actually being a star, in a position where I could gladly gift her a Slice Award (even if the more glamorous award platforms ignore horror). So what I’m trying to say is that I think Pearl is the weakest of the three films, but the one with Goff’s best performance 👍 And I remember writing back when that Mia Goff is such a brave actress, and I’ve actually been saying that again recently regarding another, Margaret Qualley. Can you imagine a movie with both of them in it, trying to outbrave each other?! They’d probably end up biting the heads off chickens! Actually, give them a mainstream comedy like Kate Hudson and Anne Hathaway’s Bride Wars, where they can freak out and go nuts on each other – I’d be first in line to see that, you would believe it!
4.5
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