MAXXXINE
***
Directed by Ti West.
Starring Mia Goth, Elizabeth Debicki, Kevin Bacon.
Horror, US, 104 minutes, Certificate 18.
Released in cinemas in the UK 5th July by Universal
One of the year's most eagerly awaited horror films arrives on cinema screens with a wave of considerable hype behind it. Just over two years ago Ti West staged a quiet comeback to the genre that made his name. X opened to favourable reviews and a decent sized audience but it was the release six months later, for US audiences at least, of the quickly conceived prequel PEARL that audiences fully embraced West’s historic vision, helped in no small part by the quicksilver performances of its leading lady Mia Goth. This trilogy capper returns the focus once again to Maxine Minx, as her long sought after stardom seems closer than ever in the sleazy neon lit streets of early 80’s Los Angeles, but the repercussions of her bloody run in with the elderly Pearl years before threaten to catch up with her in now familiar bloody style.
After the retro slasher stylings of X and the gory melodrama of PEARL, audiences have been keen to see how West and Goth would round things out. The Hollywood setting with its myriad 80’s visual and audio stylings allows West to indulge in nods to De Palma’s BODY DOUBLE with Maxine’s backstage journey from porn to the barely more respected fields of low budget horror, whilst a black gloved killer with a personal connection to Maxine’s past steers the mayhem into Argento territory. Even Hitchock is paid tribute to as Norman Bates' old house is used as the staging ground for a chase sequence that plays out like something from the various crime and action television shows that made such use of the same studio backlot at that time.
Goth seizes the opportunity to also go big and make the most of her character, for what seems the final time. Even more brash and upfront than before, with the added air of respectability Maxine feels is long overdue, this is Goth’s most fun performance yet. Snorting coke, shouting abuse at fellow actresses and facing down would-be stalkers with ball crushing ferocity, Goth’s performance will no doubt go down as one of the most iconic Final Girl’s in slasher cinema in all her confrontational glory.
From the start the film is enormous fun, particularly with the supporting turns from Kevin Bacon as a sweaty New Orleans private eye and Elizabeth Debicki as a no-nonsense horror director. The films missteps however soon become more numerous with Lily Collins supporting turn as a horror starlet uncomfortably displaying the English actresses baffling lack of skill when it comes to tackling the English accent, while Bobby Cannavale and Michelle Monaghan struggle to make much of an impression with their underwritten nice and nasty detectives.
Overstuffed with characters the film soon struggles to keep its plot afloat before it splutters out in a severely underwhelming fashion. Nowhere to be found is the bravura stylings of its predecessors highlights, particularly Goth’s ten minute monologue from PEARL or the slickly executed executions of X. Overstuffed with characters and a closing act that fails to make the most of its vintage Satanic Panic and Night Stalker plot allusions, MAXXXINE as a closing act feels like an entertaining enough but rushed end product and not the slam bang denouement many of us hoped it would be.
Iain MacLeod
