REVIEW: Ti West's Maxxxine Doesn't Stick The Knife Deep Enough Into Hollywood
Plot Spoilers Noted.
Maxxxine (2024) 3/5
Only In Theaters
Maxine has had a hard life. But this movie is too easy on her.
Ti West is a horror history nut. He knows his subgenres and what particular cinematic innovations and historical events influenced those styles at those times.
As predicted here and here, the final film in West’s trilogy is a dick-out marriage proposal love letter to the 70’s & 80’s films of Brian De Palma down to the obsessions with Hitchcock, giallo, and meta commentary on Hollywood horror.
X, set in 1979, is a gritty grindhouse slasher where a psycho-biddy murders the (star)fuckers on her property, jealous she was never able to escape rural Texas and become a star. That background is explored in Pearl, set during the Spanish influenza pandemic in the age of technicolor to explore isolation and new desires.
2022’s X and Pearl used their vintage influences to build the foundations to what should’ve been the powerful conclusion to West’s thesis on Hollywood fame and failure. But even with all those De Palma touches, Maxxxine doesn’t have anything to say about it.
Psycho-Biddy
Psychotic biddies! Refers to the character and their horror subgenre starring a formerly glamorous elder woman who’s become mentally unstable and violent. Also known as the hagsploitation (hag + exploitation) genre.
Examples: What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?, The Taking of Deborah Logan
All three protagonists have the same goal: to be a star. Maxxxine moves the obsession to the 80’s Satanic Panic, a time of censorship around sex and gore, but it misses the element that every daughter of Valley of the Dolls luxuriates in: The Cost of Fame.
[Plot Spoilers] After Maxine survives the traumatic events of X, she moves to L.A., continuing a career in the hardcore scene as she strives for her big acting break. After she lands the lead in a horror sequel - a Video Nasty - her friends keep showing up dead, branded with a satanic symbol. A hammy private eye leads her to the killer; her own preacher father, aiming to purge her sins with the power of God.
With the death of her friends distracting her (but like, really not that much - the movie gives her no room to mourn), Maxine is told she is at risk for losing the part. She turns her father into strawberry jelly, then nails the role.
In the final scene, she watches her body-less head double from behind the camera as she tells the mentoring director she never wants this - fame - to end. Credits roll on her fake severed head, in one of many nods to Body Double.
The film, and Maxine herself, tell us that she is ruthless for stardom - but that is never truly tested in Maxxxine. She murders for her own self-preservation, but she never pushes anyone down a flight of stairs to take the lead.
She doesn’t have to give up anything for Hollywood fame; she just ties up the one loose end from her past that still would’ve followed her if she hadn’t landed the role. All of her friends are taken from her, not by the ol’ staples of overdose or betrayal, but by her religious nutjob of a father.
Without a real fight for stardom, there’s no tension. So much of De Palma’s (and Hitchcock’s!!) filmography is about the fear - the thrill!! - of waiting for the kill, of getting caught and Maxxxine is tragically deprived of that sensation.
Lackluster murdered characters are killed without a chance for escape, so there’s no audience tension between rooting for them to live and rooting for that gorgeous, gorgeous kill. Their absence isn’t felt after their deaths.
Do I love to watch a woman crush a leering man’s nuts with her stiletto? Of course, but all this scene does is reinforce to the audience that Maxine can’t lose. She’s too much of a badass to ever truly be in danger, and what kind of horror movie doesn’t put the protagonist in danger? Maxine has had a hard life. But this movie is too easy on her.
Ti West undeniably set out to make a modern version of Body Double, a film about the kinky joys and violence of voyeurism, the reputation and safety of sex workers, and how Hollywood will chew you up and spit you out for being a human being instead of a pawn.
West sets up every opportunity, and then misses it. Similar to the claustrophia scene from Body Double, Maxine’s trauma prevents her from casting a face double, costing the production time and materials.
In Body Double, his panic lost him the role. In Maxxxine, she gets another go; no harm, no foul. The director tells Maxine that her trauma-led ruthlessnes is what makes her a star. But what kind of 1985 Hollywood is this that her trauma is also treated with respect?
I know I’m asking that the traumatized sex worker should’ve suffered more, but this is the Reagan-80’s Satanic Panic. America is divided on sex and gore, but there’s one thing everyone can agree on loving: An Underdog. From hardcore to Hollywood, Maxine should be The Ultimate Underdog. But this movie doesn’t make her fight her way to the top; it just gives it to her, leaving us, the audience, with nothing to root for.
[End Plot Spoilers]
Video Nasties
A list of 72 tapes - predominantly in the horror genre - that the National Viewers' and Listeners' Association in the U.K. believed to have violated obscenity clauses. Influence from religious organizations and the press lead to highly publicized censorship trials that also included hit music.
Check out The Horror! The Horror! for a month-long series on Video Nasties.
Examples: Cannibal Holocaust, I Spit on Your Grave, The Evil Dead
This film LOOKS gorgeous. West’s visuals are some of the most beautiful in modern horror, from the crunchy ‘80’s static to the appropriately-budgeted wig department to the Kensington gore. It was a fun ride.
Maybe there will be a MaxIIne where her trauma-induced cocaine addiction sends her into a tailspin and we get Sunset Boulevard Mia Goth in 2025 Hollywood murdering her younger co-stars who keep getting replaced by AI.
But after screaming that she’s a star for two films, the lead’s final calm affirmation to the mirror lands flat for me. The Hollywood stardom machine demands blood and Maxine’s rise should’ve cost her even more of it.
For you if you love: Brian De Palma, Mia Goth, X, Pearl
xo,
the voicemail you got from allie lembo that’s just heavy breathing and an ungodly shrieking sound following by a squelching so you call her back but it keeps going to voicemail so you go to leave her one but suddenly you don’t know what to say so you just breathe into the phone until you hear an ungodly shrieking sou- [squelching]