Big Hollywood Dreams

Slasher movie franchises tend to follow a pattern. The first film sets a template, with the kind of film we’re going to see, the killer we expect to find coming back again and again, and the level of sex and gore to expect as the films wear on. If Freddy is in Nightmare on Elm StreetThe brain-child of director Wes Craven, A Nightmare on Elm Street was his answer to the glut of Slasher films that were populating the multiplex. His movie featured an immortal character, Freedy, with a powerset like none other, reshaping the expectations for Slasher movies to come., then you know what’s gonna happen: a bunch of teens get together, they all fail to stay awake at inopportune moments, and Freedy will kill them in silly, overly complex ways that play on their fears. The same goes for a HalloweenThe franchise that both set the standard for Slasher horror and, at the same time, defied every convention it created, Halloween has seen multiple time lines and reboots in its history, but one thing has remained: Michael Myers, the Shape that stalks Haddonfield. or a Friday the 13thOne of the most famous Slasher film franchises, the Friday the 13th series saw multiple twists and turn before finally settling on the formula everyone knows and loves: Jason Voorhees killing campers 'round Camp Crystal Lake. and any of those series from the 1980s and 1990s. Hell, even the Scream series has a predictable and standard formula that allows you to go in knowing what to expect, film to film, despite the actual killers changing each time out.

Ti West’s X film series is different. This is a horror trilogy that bucks conventions, switching between different time periods and different kinds of films from one movie to the next. The first film, X, was about young adults out on a remote farm, getting picked off one by one, like Texas Chainsaw, only to then pivot with Pearl: An X-traordinary Origin Story into a period piece about a lonely, twisted woman battling against expectations of society and her own family. If you hadn’t seen both films and didn’t know they were connected, you might very well have been confused about the throughline.

That throughline is made clear by the third (and, at least for now, final) film, MaXXXine, a movie about a woman trying to make it as a star in Hollywood. In each movie the main character (whether Mia Goth’s Maxine Minx in X and MaXXXine and or her turn as Pearl) is yearning to find their big break, to accomplish their dream, to be a star. They believe they have what it takes and are willing to do anything to make it happen, even as extreme events take place around them (or because of them). Stardom, in a way, is the killer of these films, and each movie goes about highlighting that experience in a different way.

For MaXXXine, the series pivots again, this time taking the form of a serial killer procedural, blending the rise of a Hollywood star with the story of a killer stalking her. It’s about external forces playing against the starlet’s own desires, as well as her willingness to do anything to become who she always wanted to be. Maxine here is equal parts young ingénue and desperate warrior, someone who has to balance her wants with the requirements of the industry. Nothing comes free and she has to decide just how far she will compromise herself to make it big, even if it means ignoring (or even being complicit) in the threats to her life.

MaXXXine returns to Maxine Minx (Goth), a few years after the events of X, now working in the L.A. area. While bouncing between various sex industry gigs, as a stripper at The Landing Strip or working a porn booth as a dancer for the Hollywood Show World, she’s also landed herself a gig as the star of a new horror sequel, The Puritan II, a slasher about a demented woman doing anything she can to take what’s hers. This is her big break, her one chance to make it out of the world of porn and be something bigger, and she has to take it.

Only problem is that there’s a killer out on the streets, the Night Stalker, and he seems to be stalking and targeting Maxine. One by one (and sometimes two at a time), her friends start dying off. The police come sniffing around, as Maxine is the common denominator in these most recent killings, and the two detectives, Williams (Michelle Monaghan) and Torres (Bobby Cannavale), want to know what Maxine knows and why these killings are connected to her. But Maxine has a past, including the killings at the Texas farmhouse (from the first film), and even if those were self defense (and not even all her fault) it’s hard to explain that to the authorities. Can Maxine trust the police? Will she find the killer? Or will she end up dead before she even gets her big moment?

MaXXXine is an interesting movie, as much for what it is as what it’s not. The film, despite having a continuing story from the first film, isn’t really playing in the same genre at all. It’s dressed up as a horror film, but it’s far more of a character study about the lead character than a slasher like the first or a psycho killer of the second. The film dresses up as something different, less a horror than a thriller, more interested in studying a character than in the actual killings. We see bodies, and we do see one brutal kill, but the film really isn’t about the murders but when they mean to Maxine. It creates a very different type of movie.

I think that, in part, makes this film very strange and, in many ways, less like a sequel to the previous movies. Yes, Maxine Minx is here, still played by Mia Goth, but this film hardly feels related to the other two movies. For horror fans and gore hounds, this film might even seem like a letdown. It’s not the film they were expecting from the previous two movies, not a late night popcorn film for people to watch and get scared to. This film is very different, to the point that you could practically watch it on its own and get a different experience from if you’d seen the previous two movies. It wants to be something different.

I’m not sure it actually works. As a character study the film is great, but it struggles to balance telling Maxine’s story and getting out her passion, her power, her star sparkle alongside the needs of a horror movie. It tries to dress up to be something more but, in the process, has weird story beats and plot loops that actually make it feel trashier and less than its aspirations. Maybe that’s intentional, a character study film that mirrors the trashiness of the main character herself, although I doubt that was what West was going for.

Not that everything about this film is bad. I did like the one gory kill we got, which showed a level of interesting brutality that was missing from the “horror” of the rest of the film. I also rather liked the idea of the film within the film, with The Puritan nicely mirroring Pearl’s own story, in a way, from the prequel. That was a parallel storytelling device that I think worked much better and showed a level of creativity this film needed. There were times that MaXXXine was really able to use its Hollywood setting and storytelling conceits to come up with something more than just another thriller, but those moments were fleeting. I appreciated when something interesting, some creative idea came forth… I just wish more of the film were like that.

Honestly, MaXXXine feels like a missed opportunity. It’s a film that really needed to either be more horror centric to bring out the fans of the first two movies, or more restrained and interested in its character so that the actual drama could play out properly. The film splits itself too much, never finding the right balance, ending up the weakest entry of the trilogy by far.