Review: Ti West and Mia Goth stick the landing with ‘MaXXXine’

Genre movie fans should be applauding Ti West and Mia Goth for seeing them, for appreciating them and for gifting them with an incredible trio of films that has culminated with “MaXXXine,” a deliriously lurid throwback to the gritty, dangerous days of 1980’s trash cinema that lined the shelves at your local VHS retailer.

This journey through the annals of horror/thriller celluloid began in 2022 with “X,” which found West and Goth mining “The Texas Chain Saw Massacre,” “Gator Bait” and other subversive, early '70s chillers to tell the story of Maxine Miller’s foray into adult cinema, which becomes a literal life-or-death struggle to survive against an equally ambitious, but older, version of herself.

It continued that same year with the surprise release of “Pearl,” a blood-soaked prequel set in 1918, starring Goth as the young adult version of the crazed older killer from “X,” as she seeks to free herself from the confines of the family’s Texas farm and a fiancé believed lost in the war, and find fame as an actress in the days before movies even had sound for dialogue. With “Pearl,” West and Goth seemed to find inspiration from an array of diverse and off-kilter features like “The Wizard of Oz” and “Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?”

For the final act, “MaXXXine” is set in 1985 Los Angeles, where Goth has reinvented herself as Maxine Minx, a well-known blue-movie starlet and peepshow dancer who still longs for everyone to know her name. Maxine finally gets her chance when she is cast in an upcoming horror sequel, “The Puritan II,” only to discover that someone from her past may not want her to succeed.

While I deeply enjoyed “X” and “Pearl,” I was blown away by how well West reimagined the mid-80’s heyday when movies like “Crimes of Passion,” “Body Double,” “Vice Squad” and “The Hunger” titillated and offended with equal measure.

If there was ever any doubt to Goth’s acting ability, “MaXXXine” shows that she is on a level that few actors rarely reach. Her approach to Maxine is to imagine Tracy Flick as a pornstar, someone who cannot, will not, won’t ever accept defeat or the possibility that she is simply average and not special.

It’s an electrifying performance that is elevated by an impressive cast of A-list actors relishing the opportunity to swim in the grimy gutter. Kevin Bacon shines as a despicably gross New Orleans PI chasing Maxine and Giancarlo Esposito is wonderfully absurd as her kill-or-be-killed Hollywood agent.

“MaXXXine” was at the top of my shortlist for must-see summer releases and, thankfully, it did not disappoint.

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