If “Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood” (2019) was Quentin Tarantino’s love letter to Sixties Hollywood, “MaXXXine” is Ti West’s hate letter to Eighties Hollywood, and it’s just as luscious and entertaining. The flat cynicism might not win over all viewers; things like “La La Land” and “Once Upon a Time …” are easier sells because they are positive, either in straightforward or sideways fashion.
“MaXXXine” – as is especially clear in retrospect – can’t possibly be. Writer-director West has been planting the seeds since his initial “X” trilogy entry (2022’s “X,” which was followed by the prequel “Pearl”) when he included incongruous-at-the-time flashbacks to the childhood of Final Girl Maxine (Mia Goth).
Maybe not X-rated, but definitely R
This trilogy capper deliciously explores the potential dark side of the “nurture” in “nature vs. nurture.” It’s uncompromisingly cynical about religion, but that could go unnoticed because the movie likewise has nothing good to say about Hollywood, building on Bette Davis’ quote that you’re not a movie star till you’re seen as a monster.
“MaXXXine” (2024)
Director: Ti West
Writer: Ti West
Stars: Mia Goth, Kevin Bacon, Giancarlo Esposito
If Fangoria – the favored magazine of Maxine’s video-store clerk friend (Moses Sumney) in this 1985-set story – lists best gore-ific moments of the year, “MaXXXine” has three that will make a strong case for the top 10: one in an alley, one in a junkyard, one in a mansion in the Hills. The Night Stalker killings provide a real-world backdrop like the Sharon Tate case in “Once Upon a Time …,” though not as cleverly.
While you won’t get intense slasher scares here, the Eighties setting is convincing in its neon glamour and sweaty grime. This is highlighted by a strobe-lit nightclub sequence amid the cat-and-mouse game between a killer hero and a tasty villain.
Kevin Bacon, as he often does, steals the show in the latter role as a bounty hunter tracking down Maxine for a client. I’m a little ashamed I didn’t guess that client’s identity right away, but I think it will be effective whether you guess it or not.
Other fun supporting turns come from “Better Call Saul’s” Giancarlo Esposito as Maxine’s tracksuit-wearing entertainment lawyer, and Lily Collins as an actress who has solved the bizarre puzzle of getting a movie role before Maxine. She says: “We girls have to stick together. Nice meeting you, Nadine.”
City of the devil
Goth has a tough (in both senses of the word) role as someone whose soul has been pummeled out of her. Duality and cross-purposes are again themes in this third “X” film – which features various symbolism with the letter, including the straps on Maxine’s red-carpet dress.
At first blush, I might’ve liked more moments of Maxine being gloriously fake, like in scenes from the movie-within-a-movie “The Puritan II.” But West perhaps realizes layers upon layers of meta are – ironically – redundant in 2024, so he’s content to focus on Maxine’s lot in life: that in order to achieve her dream, she must navigate a nightmare.
But she’s not interested in escaping a nightmare by waking up (that would kill the dream, too); she’s interested in being a monster who can defeat a monster. West (whose best film is still 2009’s Eighties-set “House of the Devil”) kicks the movie off with a wider context of this irony: Politicians in the 1980s tried to snuff out horror films and scary music with bans, censorship or at least labeling. Demons attempting to demonize.
It’s a weird feeling, watching a movie where the good guy is a bad person (in terms of actions, bluntly speaking). There’s no silver lining of true joy here. Except in the fact that West has made another tremendous movie, which I’d narrowly rank as the best of the “X” trilogy.
It wouldn’t be healthy to always be in the mood for a blunt skewering of perhaps the most cynical enclave of culture, but if you are, “MaXXXine” earns its Walk of Fame (Infamy?) star.