MAXXXINE. Slashers, a storied genre that runs from the comic and campy to the psychologically complex, following the bloody progress of a (mostly) unseen killer as they cut down a cast with brutality and/or sometimes goofy creativity to enact vengeance or work out some issues, aren’t for everyone. Honestly, they mostly aren’t for me. As much as I love horror and violent action movies, the slow march of the masked killer toward their panicking victims doesn’t hold interest. Exceptions include the Fear Street series (2021), and Final Girl-centric movies that function more like action-thrillers, like You’re Next (2011), the latter of which I’d avoided for years because, well, slashers aren’t for me. But the tension in these is held in the teeth of its leads and the grit of their characters. Nor do they seem fixated on the standard pairing of boobs and blood that always creeps me out in exactly the wrong way.
While Maxxxine, director Ti West’s third installment in series kicked off by X (2022) and the prequel Pearl (2022), holds some promise in that regard, the movie falls into the genre pitfalls it seems to mean to skewer. Mia Goth’s strange and steely presence as Maxine Minx, survivor of the first film’s massacre of the cast and crew of a rural porn shoot, offers an unblinking view of Hollywood hypocrisy and an impressive path to self-actualization. But while continuing to follow the trail and thematic strands of the previous movies might work in terms of the series as a whole, it may have weakened this chapter as a stand-alone work.
In 1985, amid Satanic panic and the Nightstalker killings, Maxine, preacher’s daughter turned porn star (if “star” means still having to take shifts in the peep booths at Show World) is trying to break into Hollywood. It’s tough out there, but Maxine may be tougher, not blinking when she’s asked to show her breasts at an audition or hesitating to dispense punishment when confronted by a would-be attacker. Snagging the lead in a horror sequel (wink, wink) directed by the demanding and freakishly poised Elizabeth Bender (Elizabeth Debicki), who delivers cryptic advice and admonishments, she seems on her way. Maxine is determined to make the most of her shot, despite being harassed by a sleazy detective (a greasy Kevin Bacon) hunting her down for an unknown client and threatening to reveal her as a killer, or the fact that other young women she knows in the industry are turning up dead with occult markings.
The immersion into high-neon 1985 is a feat of set design and costuming, though the Risky Business font of the credits does a lot of lifting there, too. Debicki is peak Ralph Lauren in her riding boots and shoulder-padded blazers and not a single detail is missed in the interiors, either. (Truly, only Goth’s missing eyebrows seem out of place, like an AI rendering that skipped a humanizing feature.) And the nostalgia turns self-reflexive in a chase through a studio lot that careens through classic movie sets and leads to the Psycho house. Maxine’s fixation on the house harkens back to the old woman in X (also played by Goth in heavy prosthetics), as well as the misogynistic violence of the horror/slasher genre. The bloody scenes are straight homage, with a black leather-gloved killer’s arm framed above the victim and blood spattering dramatically. Does it matter that it’s not even a little unexpected?
As Bender speechifies about trying to say something important through a gory slasher picture amid right-wing Christian protests, she plants the question of Maxxxine’s message in the audience’s mind. The manufacturing of fear is hard to criticize in a movie manufacturing fear, and it’s equally difficult to comment on how much our culture is titillated by the spectacle of helpless female fear in a movie that showcases the same. The only thing that sticks is Maxine’s singular will. It’s just not enough to take us beyond the cheaper thrills of fake blood and rubber knives. R. 104M. BROADWAY, MILL CREEK, MINOR.
Jennifer Fumiko Cahill (she/her) is the arts and features editor at the Journal. Reach her at (707) 442-1400, extension 320, or jennifer@northcoastjournal.com. Follow her on Instagram @JFumikoCahill.
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This article appears in 2024 California Ballot Measures:.
