MaXXXine | Review | The Film Blog

★★★

From the moment she struts into her first frame in MaXXine, skin-tight in silhouette and denim, Mia Goth is everything. In a film all about exploitation and the thirst for fame, only she has the fangs to drink it. There’s just something about her ownership of Ti West’s screen that screams star, even without the Bette Davis’ eyes and Betty Boop lips. No doubt, the film itself, which is likely the weaker of the now three X films, underserves Goth’s gumption. Certainly, it’s an uneven effort, rising well but folding hard. And yet, so long as there’s bite in those fangs, there’s a compelling beat to be found.

Some years have passed since the events of X, in which Maxine Minx (Gogh) defeated her own wizened doppelgänger by brutal head crushing. The seventies are a distant memory, the eighties could hardly be louder in making their presence known. It’s in the hair, the make up, the fine grain of Eliot Rockett’s cinematography. Already renowned for her pornographic high profile, Maxine yearns for more mainstream appeal. The men on set know who she is but, boy, it’d sure be real nice if their wives did too. Not that she’s ashamed of her origins, brazenly dropping her zip at the close of one breathtaking audition, recalling Emma Stone’s similarly undercut La La Land showcase. Brooke Shields, she notes, striped ‘and now she’s in a f***ing Muppets movie’.

Maxine’s big break comes with a part in a gore fest horror sequel from Elizabeth Debicki’s imperious director, Elizabeth Bender, a trailblazer with exacting standards. “The Puritan II” boasts ‘a B-movie with A ideas’ but serves really as a back door to era homage – literally, the Bates Motel knocked up for 1983’s Psycho II is round the corner. There’s a lot of this, albeit not always cemented to any sense of narrative logic or contextual meaning. It’s grand fun but West strikes stronger with less blatant genre nods, such as the scene in which Maxine is lathered in latex for the creation of a facial cast. The effect is tremendously claustrophobic but dripping as much in metatextuality as rubber as Goth’s elder double lurches into view.

The more tangible threat here is the whim of bonafide local serial killer cum sex offender the Night Stalker, or, rather, a copycat trailed by LAPD detectives Williams (Michelle Monaghan) and Torres (Bobby Cannavale). Even the devil incarnate’s a performer here. It’s infectious. While Det. Torres fancies himself for Axel Foley – Cannavale having the time of his life – Kevin Bacon’s shady P.I. can’t resist a game of cowboys when the set screams high noon. None play the game like Maxine, of course, with Goth at her best in moments demanding domination. This in contrast to two of her more subservient relationships within the film. They never quite zing.

As with X and Pearl, much is made of era specificity in MaXXXine’s aesthetic and tone, Where X channeled seventies grindhouse sexploitation, and Pearl the technicolour visual brilliance of Oz, MaXXXine lands in the lurid and neon. Frankie Goes To Hollywood and Kim Cairns make for obvious soundtrack additions and there’s no faulting the attention to detail driving the film’s hair, make-up and costume successes. Even the very inclusion of Bacon can’t help but feel like an Easter Egg, of which there are many. Some of it feels a little spurious and superficial – perhaps reminiscent Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood – but it’s a whale of a time for those who recall the days of video rental.

MaXXXine peaks somewhere in the middle, a slow start taking time to finds its compulsive mojo. Goth electrifies. And yet, the deflation is as quick in its descent, an undercooked finale undeserving Goth’s capabilities and her character’s strength of being. Great steps taken to rewrite the ‘final girl’ model of the eighties horror backtrack at pace as Maxine falls subject to the flow of her foe. Where she goes next is anyone’s guess but you can bet that Goth’s own trajectory will be the more interesting.

T.S.