‘MaXXXine’ is a Ball-busting Finale to Ti West’s ‘X’ Trilogy

Credit: A24

Rating: 4/5

This review contains minor spoilers for MaXXXine.

Don't let the mixed reviews get you down; MaXXXine is not a flop. Whilst the feature is the weakest of its X predecessors, we still get a solid performance from Mia Goth, a teste castration, and a middle-fingered salute to the sexist horror tropes Ti West's horror trilogy subverts through its continued pastiche. What this conclusion could spell, however, is the Disney-fication of A24. An overwhelming number of pointless cameos were made by hot-topic actors, and although not all of these performances were bad, they do smell a bit like Hollywood sell-out. If the X franchise continues beyond Maxine Minx's arc, they'll have to do a lot better than cheap pandering to keep its reputation afloat.

As The New York Times notes, "Of the three films, MaXXXine is the one that most revels in its movieness." This isn't a bad thing; considering the Hollywood setting and Maxine's character development from porn star-to-movie star, playing into the corniness of the 80s feels like a natural progression from the Texas Chainsaw Massacre-style X. Whilst the sequel's relevancy to the previously released Pearl is less obvious, her elderly ghost still haunts Maxine's visions. Not everyone enjoyed West's execution of this decade. The Ringer writes that MaXXXine is "completely punch-drunk on pastiche" and "nothing is actually scary" -- but was Pearl scary? Was X scary?

Credit: A24

Bar the subjective nature of what constitutes scary, Pearl was not a particularly scary film, but more so gory. The same can be said for X, although the suspense laid throughout it created a more tense atmosphere than its prequel and sequel. All rely heavily on pastiche in their morbid appeal. There's a greater element of black comedy than there is scariness throughout the trilogy, which appeals particularly to a female audience. Both Maxine and Pearl defy those that attempt to hurt them, either physically or emotionally, through ruthless violence motivated by their ambition, á la female rage. Their choice of vengeance is amusingly gory and subversively so -- Pearl penetrated her former lover with a pitchfork when he inadvertently suppressed her ambition, and Maxine bursts a man's balls when he tries to mug her in a dark alleyway. These moments were laugh-out-loud funny, in a silly and girly kind of way.

Yet despite its mass appeal to a female audience being a defining element of the X franchise (see: TikTok), it seems to have drawn comparisons to Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood (2019) for its use of pastiche in multiple publications: The New York Times, ScreenRant, and The Telegraph. An odd link to make considering Tarantino's films are often glorified by fanatic film boys and heavily criticised for his treatment of actresses on-set (Uma Thurman and Diane Kruger). Not only this, but a male-dominated buddy-comedy about a real-life serial killer does not quite fall into the same genre as a female-focused genre-subverting trilogy not quite about a real-life serial killer. What little they have in common is surely going to be approached in vastly different ways, making it a head-scratching barometer to measure MaXXXine against. Because of this unusual choice, the comparison begins to feel a little gendered for reasons one can only speculate on with female intuition.

Credit: A24

So, let's push that to one side. MaXXXine concludes the X trilogy by rewarding a young woman's ambition and defiance of misogynistic moralising from the patriarchal forces stalking her. In X, we witnessed Maxine refuse the typical final girl trope by being a sexually promiscuous survivor, as opposed to a virginal one. She doesn't fit within the confines of a Madonna-whore complex either; her career in the sex industry is a means to an end, but one she sees herself undeniably breaking out from, not because she's ashamed of it, but because she wants and knows she deserves more. In Pearl, our titular anti-heroine is forced to suppress her youthful desires through the droning mantra her mother insists upon: "make the most of what you have." But her hunger for more is never satiated, and neither is the crocodile that lives in her marsh. Maxine narrowly avoids being consumed by this same crocodile in X, same as she remains the sole survivor of Pearl's 1979 massacre. She releases Pearl from her monotonous life on the farm by ending it and flees to Hollywood only to be followed (supposedly) by The Night Stalker.

The substantial jump to a new location is not dissimilar to pattern in which this film franchise was created. West mentioned in an interview with Entertainment Weekly that "If I'd had the forethought ahead of time, and I could have written three in a row, we probably would have done it." Unfortunately, this disjointedness is where the film falls short. MaXXXine does set a lower bar in terms of the quality of its execution in comparison to its predecessors. Goth, being the scream queen tour-de-force that she is, grounds the finale through her performance and production of the material -- her understanding of Pearl and Maxine is the golden thread tying the franchise together. Some recognisable cast members around her, though, rely too heavily on the internet icon status Goth has established for the series, edging dangerously close to cheapening the feminist appeal of the horror franchise into commodified pandering.

More horrifying yet, are the rumours of a continuation of the X franchise into an entire cinematic universe. As Roger Ebert rightly pointed out, "The revelation of the killer’s identity and motivation only raises more questions than it answers," and this may well fill movie-goers tired of the Hollywood money-making machine with utter dread. Is this lack of answers foreshadowing a potential route for the story to follow?

Credit: A24

If MaXXXine is not the end of Ms. Minx's arc, then the legacy of the X trilogy could be well and truly defecated upon. The pointless big-name stars that cameoed in MaXXXine (Halsey, Elizabeth Debicki, and Lily Collins were certainly the weakest characters -- Kevin Bacon and Giancarlo Esposito at least provided some engine to the story) may be indicative of the Disney-fication of the A24 brand.

West and Goth have created something iconic with X. Whilst MaXXXine hit many predictable beats throughout its tight one-hour-and-three-quarters run, they were struck with enjoyable, gory whimsy. The concluding villain reveal and good cop-bad cop dynamics littering the screenplay was so very Hollywood it would have to be purposefully camp, considering the skill in which X and Pearl were written with. MaXXXine wraps up the trilogy with humour and defiance but certainly has a lot of explaining to do. All that remains now is for fans to cross their fingers and pray that if this franchise is to continue, it doesn't fall into the trap of being a cringeworthy girl-power cash grab.