MaXXXine review – a horribly watchable Hollywood story about sex, death, fear and gore | Movies

Director Ti West makes three out of three, delivering a horribly watchable new installment of his outrageous, ambitious horror-porn noir comic book franchise, this time set in ’80s Hollywood. Mia Goth returns triumphantly to the role of Maxine, now known as adult film star MaXXXine Minx, whose traumatic teenage story was told in 2022’s X and its 2023 prequel Pearl. West grinds out a thick impasto of pulp, blood, grime and fear and gets away with colossally self-aware scenes, including one in the Bates Motel set on the Universal studio lot, and one beneath the Hollywood sign; there’s also some top-notch acting talent in the supporting roles.

It’s 1985 in sunny Los Angeles and the titles of this film are scratched across the screen in Flashdance-like letters, flickering a little at the edges as if they were being broadcast live on television. Ronald Reagan tells America that its best days are by no means behind it; Frankie Goes to Hollywood and ZZ Top are showing and in one cinema, Hail Mary by Jean-Luc Godard is obviously only showing for one evening. MaXXXine is now in her thirties; A ruthless survivor and Ripleyesque careerist, she’s determined to cap off her work in porn with a crossover with horror, hence the progression to legitimate cinematic stardom is surely just a small step.

MaXXXine is testing a horror sequel called The Puritan II, with the paternal support of her agent Teddy (Giancarlo Esposito) and her best friend, video store assistant Leon (Moses Sumney). But things aren’t easy: there’s a serial killer terrorizing the town’s women with a penchant for sex industry professionals; Hot on the trail of the monster are LAPD cop Detective Williams (Michelle Monaghan), who isn’t convinced that all the bodies are the fault of the same patient, and his idiot partner, Detective Torres (Bobby Cannavale), whose The witness questioning is marred by his harsh histrionics. -guy character – just like he used to make mistakes back when he was trying to become a professional actor himself. MaXXXine is also threatened by a sweaty and scary private detective called John Labat, who knows a little about her past, played with relish and piquancy by Kevin Bacon.

But the film is almost stolen by the statuesque and charismatic Elizabeth Debicki with giant padded shoulders, amusingly playing Elizabeth Bender, a haughty and demanding British director and MaXXXine’s mentor. It is of course the fate of any actor who plays a member of the British royal family to be haunted by that character afterwards, and it is impossible to witness Debicki’s commanding performance without thinking that Princess Diana of The Crown must have somehow landed a job to direct a movie. horror film, perhaps embittered by her marriage to Charles, being nasty to the crew with that posh, estuarine voice and laying down the law on the correct way blood should squirt from various orifices. And it’s Bender who coldly scorns the protesters from the religious and moral majority who always try to disrupt filming: “Angry people are so easy to lead,” she says astutely.

In the first X, Ti West channeled Tobe Hooper; now he’s giving us something closer to the Shane Black of Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, but with a tongue-in-cheek allusion to Paul Schrader’s 1979 Hardcore. I’m looking forward to the reincarnation of MaXXXine for Clinton’s fourth ’90s film as a venture capitalist investing in the online sector. adult content; maybe the title could be ClimaXLove.

• MaXXXine is released in the US and UK on July 5 and in Australia on August 8.