Mia Goth's psychotic character Maxine Minx is ready for her close-up in director Ti West's knowingly gore-splattered slasher horror MaXXXine. The movie is the third and supposedly final chapter in West's horror pastiche trilogy (although a fourth movie is rumoured to be on the way), which began with X and continued with Pearl.
As a filmmaker, West radiates a love of horror and MaXXXine pulsates with a neon-hued throwback to the enjoyably sleazy 1980s heyday of the slasher movie and emergent VHS technology. Maxine has arrived in Hollywood and seeks to make her name on a production of a tawdry chiller named The Puritan II. However, a seedy private investigator (played by Kevin Bacon) is on her trail and there's a black-gloved, giallo-inspired serial killer on the loose in Los Angeles.
How far will Maxine go to achieve her dream? It's time to find out, but before you do, let's recap the events in West's previous movies X and Pearl that have led us to this moment.
X (2022)
- In 1979, Maxine Minx is an aspiring adult film star who's about to embark on a seedy porn shot in rural Texas
- She joins the crew en route to the remote Texas farm: they are director RJ (Owen Campbell), his girlfriend and the film's camera assistant Lorraine (Jenna Ortega), Maxine's own boyfriend and the film's producer Wayne (Martin Henderson), lead actress Bobby-Lynne (Brittany Snow) and lead actor Jackson Hole (Scott Mescudi)
- The farm is owned by the reclusive elderly couple Howard and Pearl (also played by Goth) who have not been informed of the group's intentions
- The cast and crew take over the guesthouse that has been rented for the shoot, and Pearl takes a peculiar interest in Maxine, claiming that Maxine looks exactly like she did at a young age
- The sexually frustrated Pearl spies on the crew and imagines herself in Maxine's role; she is later rebuffed by her ailing husband Howard
- Attempting to impose herself on RJ, who is furious at Lorraine's insistence on appearing in the film, Pearl stabs him to death in a fit of rage
- Pearl then kills Wayne with a pitchfork and climbs into bed with Maxine who eventually awakens, horrified
- Lorraine is trapped in the basement of Pearl and Howard's house while Howard shoots Jackson in the chest and leaves him in the swamp where an alligator eventually eats and kills Bobby-Lynne
- Seemingly stimulated by all the carnage, Pearl and Howard make love while Maxine frees Lorraine from the basement
- Lorraine is shot dead by Howard but her corpse starts, causing him to have a fatal heart attack
- Maxine eventually kills Pearl by running her over with a truck and flees the scene
- It's revealed that Maxine is the daughter of the firebrand evangelist preacher who has been appearing throughout the film on Pearl and Howard's TV
- The next day the police arrive on the scene and discover the remains of the bodies, plus RJ's camera footage, which they declare contains "one goddamn f****d up horror picture"
Pearl (2023)
- In 1918, Pearl (Goth) lives with her parents on a remote Texas farm; her father is an invalid and her mother is an overbearing, often cruel presence
- Pearl's husband Howard is away serving in World War I and this has accelerated her sense of isolation
- Pearl's mother insists that she aid with her father's care amidst the Spanish Flu pandemic that has ravaged the local area
- Pearl is fascinated by the emergent power of the big screen and imagineers a life as a glamorous Hollywood movie star
- Pearl's behaviour indicates psychotic tendencies including the killing of live animals, which she feeds to the local alligator that she's named Theda
- Pearl hears from her sister-in-law Mitsy of an audition to find new dancers for a troupe around the state and decides to put herself forward, imagining a life away from the family farm
- On a visit to town, Pearl finds herself taken with a local projectionist (David Corenswet) who gives her a private screening of an illicit 'stag film' (a precursor to the pornographic movie) called A Free Ride
- During an argument, Pearl's mother's dress accidentally catches fire; Pearl douses the flames and abandons her in the basement before suffocating her father with a pillow
- The projectionist arrives at the farm and is horrified by the sight of a rotting pig that Mitsy had left as a gift some days earlier
- Pearl kills him with a pitchfork and later attends the Hollywood audition at a local church where she is rejected for not being "All-American" enough
- Mitsy later arrives at the film and coerces a lengthy, tortured confession from Pearl in which she admits to the killings, her resentment toward Howard and her aspirations of making it big in Tinseltown
- The terrified Mitsy is soon killed with an axe and fed to Theda, as Pearl had done earlier with the projectionist's body
- Having experienced an emotional breakdown, Pearl stages a grotesque homecoming tableau for Howard with a table full of rotting food and the corpses of her parents sat around it
- Pearl greets him with a smile, saying, "I'm so happy you're home
MaXXXine (2024)
- In 1985, Maxine Minx has seemingly left the Texas farmhouse massacre behind her and arrives in Hollywood to make her name on the big screen with the help of her agent Teddy Knight (Giancarlo Esposito)
- However, creepy private investigator John Labat (Kevin Bacon) is on her trail and determined to bring her to justice
- Maxine is starring in The Puritan II, a low-rent, sexually explicit sequel to a controversial 'video nasty' (a term ascribed to provocative and gruesome horror films that circulated on VHS in the 1980s and instigated a moral panic)
- The movie is being directed by Elizabeth Bender (Elizabeth Debicki) who steels Maxine against the sexism, corruption and double standards present in the movie industry
- At the same time, Los Angeles is being plagued by a series of gruesome killings that are said to be the hallmark of the Night Stalker (inspired by the real-life case of infamous serial killer Richard Ramirez who murdered at least 14 people between 1984 and 1985)
- The two cops investigating the killings, Williams (Michelle Monaghan) and Torres (Bobby Cannavale), soon cross paths with Maxine who isn't about to let criminal activity get in the way of her silver screen dream
Are you ready to reunite with Maxine? Then book your tickets via the link below. The film opens on July 5th.
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