MaXXXine, 2024.
Written and Directed by Ti West.
Starring Mia Goth, Elizabeth Debicki, Moses Sumney, Michelle Monaghan, Bobby Cannavale, Halsey, Lily Collins, Giancarlo Esposito, Kevin Bacon, Chloe Farnworth, Deborah Geffner, Sophie Thatcher, Cecilia Yesuil, Kim Charley, Rowan McCain, Susan Pingleton, Uli Latukefu, Ned Vaughn, Larry Fessenden, Marcus LaVoi, and Charley Rowan McCain.
SYNOPSIS:
In 1980s 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.
Some filmmakers obsess over certain eras, and Ti West embraces 1985 with the enthusiasm of someone rifling through the last surviving VHS tapes in a closing rental shop. MaXXXine, the final chapter in his X trilogy, dives into Hollywood’s sleaziest corners with a lurid fascination that borders on affectionate parody. Yet while the grime-slicked glamour and synth-soaked bravado make for a heady brew, the film sometimes feels more focussed on its setting than with the woman at its centre.
We find Maxine Minx (Mia Goth) a year on from the bloodbath of X. She has clawed her way from a Texas backroom porn shoot to the fringes of legitimate fame, landing her first studio role in The Puritan 2. Hollywood beckons, and West paints the city as a neon-tinted labyrinth of adult theatres, peep rooms, whispering alleyways and studio lots where uneasy ambition festers. It is, in many ways, the most elaborate playground of the trilogy.
As Maxine edges closer to the limelight, a pair of threats close in. One comes in the form of a private investigator played with swaggering style by Kevin Bacon, all gold veneers and swampy charm. The other is the Night Stalker, whose murders keep inching towards Maxine’s orbit. The set-up promises a sly, pulpy collision of Hollywood myth-making and slasher theatrics. But while West’s sense of period detail is terrific, the plotting itself rarely digs beyond the surface.
Goth once again anchors everything with intensity. Maxine is still brittle, hungry, and resolute, but the script offers her fewer emotional contours than X or Pearl did. Where Pearl’s inner life spilled out in wrenching monologues, Maxine’s psychology is sketched in broad strokes. She moves like someone propelled by ambition alone, which is dramatically coherent but not as compelling. Goth does what she can with it, flitting between hardened resolve and a wounded longing for recognition, yet the film keeps drifting away from her in favour of its own stylistic indulgences.
The supporting cast help fill the space left by that narrative detachment. Elizabeth Debicki offers a dry, imperious turn as the director attempting to mould Maxine into a star, while Giancarlo Esposito runs against type as a brash Hollywood agent. Bacon, though, steals the film outright. There’s a sly crackle of mischief every time he appears, grounding the sleaze in a flavour of danger that the film occasionally reaches for but doesn’t always achieve.
When MaXXXine leans into its violence, West displays the same gleeful nastiness that ran through X. A few kills are outrageous enough to jolt audiences out of their seats, and the film’s climactic explosion of chaos delivers the trilogy’s most unabashedly crowd-pleasing stretch. But between these moments, the story leans heavily on homage. References to De Palma, giallo cinema, Vice Squad, and VHS sleaze aren’t just nods; they are the film’s backbone. And sometimes the backbone stands in for substance.
Second Sight’s 4K release makes a persuasive case for the film as a visual object, even when it falters as a narrative one. The native 4K presentation embraces digital grain to mimic the rough texture of 1980s low-budget filmmaking, and the effect is surprisingly convincing. The palette is a world away from Pearl: thinner blacks, a cool blue tint, and bursts of red that flood the frame like spilt neon. Detail is excellent, particularly in the practical gore, and the encode is robust, preserving the film’s jittery aesthetic with precision. Atmos audio delivers punchy bass, crisp electronic cues and lively surround activity, though the overhead layer feels more reserved than expected. The disc’s supplements, including multiple new interviews and a fresh commentary, add real value and give the release the weight of a definitive edition.
MaXXXine is stylish, unruly fun with flashes of brilliance, but as a trilogy finale it feels oddly undernourished. It entertains, it dazzles, it occasionally shocks, but it struggles to stand shoulder to shoulder with its predecessors. Still, Goth remains magnetic, and Second Sight’s release lets the film look and sound the best it ever has. And for anyone wanting the full set, now is the time to invest.
SEE ALSO: Read our review of Second Sight’s 4K Ultra HD release of Pearl here
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★ ★
Tom Atkinson
