Filmmaker Ti West pays homage to 1980s genre cinema with MaXXXinewhere his sultry muse, actress Mia Goth, reprises her role as an ambitious porn actress. This highly anticipated final installment of the trilogy X Will it satisfy long-time fans?
With X (2022), set on a Texas farm in 1979, and its antecedent Pearl (2022), which took place in the same place in 1918, Ti West had seduced fans of genre cinema by revisiting the slasherof which The Texas Chainsaw Massacreby Tobe Hooper. To say that he set the bar very high for MaXXXinethe final installment in the trilogy starring the incomparable Mia Goth, is an understatement.
After dazzling the gallery in the roles of Maxine and Pearl, the actress once again takes a big bite out of that of the ambitious Texan porn actress and survival girl new genre. For this third installment, Ti West sets the action in 1985, in Reagan’s conservative America, at the very moment when night stalker Richard Ramirez is committing murders in California. As evidenced by the well-stocked shelves of the video store run by a friend of Maxine’s (Moses Summey), this is also the blessed era of the VHS cassette. In fact, Ti West even went so far as to shoot MaXXXine with cameras from the 1980s.
Six years after surviving the massacre of the production team with whom she was to film The Farmer’s DaughtersMaxine Minx wants to become the next Jamie Lee Curtis, John Carpenter’s favorite actress. Luck smiles on the brunette turned blonde – let’s remember how much Pearl hated blondes! – since the director of the hour (Elizabeth Debicki, Lady Diana in The Crown) has just chosen her to play alongside the new queen of horror (Lily Collins) in the sequel to the cult horror film The Puritan.
Or Maxine, the daughter of a television preacher (Simon Prast), is being hunted by a shady detective (Kevin Bacon) who threatens to expose her dark past. Luckily, her lawyer (Giancarlo Esposito) is looking out for her interests. At the same time, a Satanist serial killer is murdering aspiring actresses. After the murder of her friend (singer Halsey), Maxine is visited by an unlikely pair of investigators (Michelle Monaghan and Bobby Cannavale).
PHOTO JUSTIN LUBIN, ARCHIVES ASSOCIATED PRESS
Mia Goth and Halsey in MaXXXine
With a higher budget than the previous installments, defended by more well-known actors, punctuated by hits from the 1980s (ZZ Top, Animotion, Laura Branigan, etc.), MaXXXine seems to be aimed at a wider audience. One could also criticize Ti West for wanting to spare the sensitive hearts. In fact, although it shows some dripping crime scenes, some of which will make viewers with a dark sense of humor laugh, it cannot be said that this last chapter is really scary.
Teeming with jubilant nods to popular culture and genre cinema (in one scene, Maxine, who visits the sets of Psychoby Alfred Hitchcock, thinks he sees Pearl at the window of the Bates house), MaXXXine draws inspiration from different genres and subgenres. On the set of Puritan IITi West salutes the folk horror (folk horror), recalling in the process The Devilsby Ken Russell, and The Wicker Manby Robin Hardy.
Of course, the director once again pays homage to the slashera subgenre of horror that had its golden age in the 1980s, notably thanks to Wes Craven and his franchise Freddy. With its neon-lit night scenes, its atmosphere that is alternately anxiety-provoking and sensual, the whole thing also happily evokes the giallo, a genre combining detective fiction, horror and eroticism, in the style of Dario Argento (Suspiria, Darkness).
Of the three films, the third part, which offers a more classic and consensual story, is certainly not the best, but it remains just as entertaining and playful. So much so that many will undoubtedly clamour for the return of Maxine Minx or, at least, new collaborations between Ti West and Mia Goth, a duo as infernal as it is irresistible.
Indoors
Horror drama
MaXXXine
Ti West
Mia Goth, Elizabeth Debicki, Kevin Bacon
1 h 44
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