Nostalgia winds up a blood-soaked corpse in “MaXXXine,” director/screenwriter Ti West’s bodacious, outright gnarly plunge back into the cesspool of mid-’80s Los Angeles. West strips that era of the City of Angels of all its pretense and posturing to expose its dark, sleazy and, yes, irresistible underbelly.
The film marks the third and likely final entry in a superior slasher trilogy launched with 2022’s gory “X” and followed up with the horrifying 2022 prequel “Pearl” (the best in the batch). Like those two films, “MaXXXine” owes much of its success to its force-of-nature star — the volcanic Mia Goth.
Her commanding presence as single-minded adult film star Maxine Minx in “X” and “MaXXXine,” and as an off-the-rails 1918 Texas woman in “Pearl,” are the jet fuel of all three films.
“Maxxxine” finds Goth slaying it again. Literally. Her lethally ambitious Maxine (nearly every guy she runs into recognizes her for her body of work) lands her first mainstream role after killing it at an audition (echoing her terrific monologue at the end of “Pearl”). Like other Hollywood A-listers who got their Hollywood start in horror films (Kevin Bacon, Demi Moore, Jennifer Anniston, Brad Pitt), Maxine is looking to secure her footing with a schlocky little horror ditty, “The Puritan II.”
Maxine is well aware about how shady the biz can get for an up-and-coming actress, and is prepared to do whatever it takes to attain fame. That’s why she’s unfazed when, after delivering a wowza line reading, she’s immediately summoned to shed her shirt and expose her breasts.
She does so without an iota of hesitation. And lands the job.
It’s a telling and pointed moment as well as a bruising commentary about Hollywood’s sexist studio system.
From the very start there’s an edgy feminist tone humming in the background. It becomes apparent first with a brief black-and-white home video prologue featuring a young Maxine dreaming big and then with an unforgettable quote from Hollywood legend Bette Davis: “In this business, until you’re known as a monster, you’re not a star.”
Davis’ words serve as a mantra for the zealously ambitious Maxine, and reverberate throughout “MaXXXine.” But in West’s jaded vision, Hollywood doesn’t get all the blame for creating monsters. Everyone in “MaXXXine” — including the pious and sanctimonious — have a substantial part in the dirty business and all have their blood on their hands. That includes an oily scumbag of a private investigator named John Labat (Kevin Bacon, relishing every slimy second he appears).
Labat shadows Maxine everywhere; he’s been hired by a mysterious person that prefers wearing black and invites budding starlets to unfortunate parties up in the hills. Shades of author James Ellroy’s L.A. novels (“Black Dahlia”) and numerous other genre standards cast a long shadow in a neo-noir that also plays around in cinema’s sandbox. (One of the film’s best sequences finds Labat and Maxine running around a backlot with a Bates Motel set.)
In the midst of all this there’s a serial killer stalking and slaying actresses — some of whom are familiar with Maxine. The sicko brands their pretty dead faces with a Satanic symbol. Trying to figure out who the killer is, and what role Maxine plays in the killings, are two detectives (Michelle Monaghan and Bobby Cannavale).
Will Maxine be the next victim? Or will it be one of her colleagues? And could the killer be the notorious Night Stalker (a real serial killer) who’s been terrorizing and preying on Los Angeles residents?
Those questions get resolved in satisfying, unexpected ways. But the biggest pleasure you’ll get from “MaXXXine,” besides a bloody finale and the performances from Goth, Bacon and Giancarlo Esposito as Maxine’s protective agent/lawyer, is the film’s fine attention to detail (that Coke can, the clothes, the blow-dried hairstyles). There’s also the thumping score (Frankie Goes to Hollywood’s “Welcome to the Pleasuredome”), the artful cinematography and the piles upon piles of references/homages to other films and such directors as Hitchcock, Brian DePalma and more.
Those details make all the difference in “MaXXXine,” a slasher trilogy that reinvents itself with each film. Fans of neo-noir should eat this one up.
‘MAXXXINE’
3½ stars out of 4
Starring: Mia Goth, Kevin Bacon, Giancarlo Esposito, Michelle Monaghan, Bobby Cannavale, Elizabeth Debicki, Halsey
Director/screenwriter: Ti West
When & where: Opens July 5 in theaters