Spoiler Space offers thoughts on, and a place to discuss, the plot points we can’t disclose in our official review. Fair warning: This article explains the ending of the movie MaXXXine.
Spanning most of the 20th century, Ti West and Mia Goth’s chameleonic X trilogy has worn the human-skin boots of ‘70s grindhouse and the lush Technicolor of midcentury melodrama. It’s a series based around homage, with some light commentary on sexual liberation, commodification, and the psychological toll of fame. West’s ambitions nearly match Maxine’s as he tries to weave 70 years of skin and splatter flicks into a coherent package. With MaXXXine, the final (for now) entry in the slasher saga, West transports Maxine to Reagan-era L.A., when “St. Elmo’s Fire” was top of the charts and the Night Stalker stalked the streets. Wearing the mask of American giallo by way of Brian De Palma’s Body Double, MaXXXine bathes Tinsel Town in deep reds and outfits Maxine’s pursuer in thick black gloves. But this Pearl with a crystal plumage is more than a style exercise. It uses the genre’s murder-mystery narrative and identity crisis to reunite our two Goths.
MaXXXine finally sees our aspiring movie star, Maxine Minx (Goth), making her Hollywood debut. Now pounding the pavement on the Sunset Strip as she bounces between seedy strip clubs and backroom porn studios, Maxine gets her shot at the big time: A role in The Puritan II, a cheapo slasher one notch above her nudie films on the respectability scale. However, as her goals come within reach, her past comes back to haunt her. Pursued by a low-rent, Chinatown-cosplaying dick from the Bayou named Labat (Kevin Bacon), armed with a copy of the footage from the “Texas Porn Star Massacre,” Maxine stays one step ahead of the leather-clad killer picking off her friends and fellow sex workers one by one.
Since its earliest days, the spaghetti slashers known as giallo have been most associated with color, and a stylist like West makes a meal of La La Land’s hazy neon glow. He sprays on the influence of De Palma’s Hollywood gialli Body Double and New York-set Dressed To Kill like so much Aqua Net. But MaXXXine doesn’t just wear the genre’s fine Italian couture. MaXXXine honors the giallo murder mystery by pulling the last thread remaining in the series, the Televangelist Ernest Miller (Simon Prast), Maxine’s estranged father.
Though West attempts to swerve audiences with some Tarantino-esque alt-history about the Night Stalker, MaXXXine’s murder mystery is pretty predictable. Perhaps tipping his hand too closely, in MaXXXine’s earliest moments, we see young Maxine performing Pearl’s “Oui Oui Marie” dance to her father’s delight. But because he’s the last dangling thread, he is the only one who could plausibly pull the whole thing off, practically and thematically. For one thing, it’s a clear metaphor for the Santic Panic industrial complex drumming up and profiting off outrage over horror movies and porno. But also, at the height of Jim Bakker and Pat Robertson—not to mention the rise of Reagan-era Christian fundamentalism—it’s certainly easy to imagine an obscenely wealthy televangelist running a weird sex cult in the Hollywood Hills.
West’s film doesn’t just benefit from the lurid, voyeuristic visuals and deep red blood pouring from smushed testicles and cars alike. From regional indies like Alice, Sweet Alice to maximalist tentpoles like Malignant that stretch the genre to its limits, giallo films often deal with identity crises. These movies toy with the idea that hunter and prey might be the same person or, at the very least, that the victim might know their assailant. West and Goth take a provocative approach to this trope through the relationship between Maxine and Pearl. Despite her strength, resilience, and determination, Maxine knows the truth: There’s a little Pearl in her.
Throughout MaXXXine, our hero catches glimpses of Pearl coming to the surface. Her “Oui Oui Marie” choreography and her Puritan audition, which hints at Goth’s showstopping Pearl monologue and her disastrous county fair tryout, both show the parallels of their story. Even Puritan II looks like Sirkian melodrama à la Pearl. Pearl is less a prequel to MaXXXine and more of a point of comparison that shows how these two characters are fundamentally different. Maxine performs her audition with clinical precision, unzipping her shirt with the same detachment as her tear-filled performance. Comparatively, Pearl’s overeagerness is off-putting to pretty much everyone, and while she’s told she doesn’t get the job because they’re looking for someone “younger and more blonde,” it’s just as easy to assume the judges got bad vibes from her. She does not react with Maxine’s professionalism and instead goes on a killing spree.
Unsurprisingly, rejection and jealousy drive Pearl’s rage, and that dynamic is reflected in MaXXXine’s opening quote from Bette Davis: “In this business, until you’re known as a monster, you’re not a star.” The relationship between star and monster is tricky in the X trilogy, with Goth playing both. But the quote hints at the All About Eve relationship between Pearl, the older, forgotten aspiring star, and Maxine, the younger and more blonde version of Pearl. Neither Pearl nor her husband Howard use religion as the reason for the murders. Sure, Howard watches the televangelist and disapproves of the porno shoot, but the real reason he objects is simple: He thinks it will make Pearl too horny, and his heart can’t handle the boner. Pearl doesn’t say much during her killing spree, but she does share some opinions, including a dislike of blondes and a yearning to feel young and desired again. In their brief exchange, Pearl tells Maxine, “You don’t think I know who you really are? I saw what you did in the barn. You’re a deviant little whore. We’re the same. You’ll end up just like me.” “I’m nothing like you,” Maxine responds.
For Maxine, the goal of Puritan II is to play a Pearl-esque character without turning into her. West has fun with the idea when the Puritan effects artist makes a mold of Maxine’s head. Slathering on the plaster, Maxine flashes back to that night in Texas when Pearl snuck into her bed and molested her as a pair of wrinkled hands in the present grab her neck. It’s a bit of a metatexual brain scrambler: Maxine Minx, played by Mia Goth, undergoes a makeup process that Goth would’ve undergone for X, triggering a PTSD episode of Goth wearing the makeup. The actor and character reacting to multiple sides of the same trauma is a sense memory ouroboros we’d prefer not to think too deeply about.
With the televangelist’s religiosity on simmer throughout the series, it would be easy for West to make Christian hypocrisy the Big Bad of his trilogy, and MaXXXine does make the case that religious fervor and fame often do much more damage than horror movies. However, Ernest’s relationship with Maxine is similar to Pearl’s. He’s jealous of his daughter’s success and attempts to exploit her notoriety by killing her. In MaXXXine’s climax, Ernest prepares to sacrifice his daughter on camera, of course, turning this final murder into a Hollywood production with a great view, black robes, and pyrotechnics. After things go awry, Maxine chases her dad up to the Hollywood sign, where, under the spotlights of police helicopters, she refuses to accept a life she does not deserve. Similar to how she dealt with Pearl, Maxine blows his head clean off.
Ultimately, the X trilogy is about autonomy. It’s not so much about living the life you don’t deserve. It’s about owning the one you have. For the women in X, porn is an artistic and enjoyable expression of sexual liberation. They can accept or reject it, but it’s their decision. Through porn, Maxine controls her sexuality and her future, and through horror, her safety and death. The final shot of MaXXXine plays on Pearl’s memorable closing-credits close-up, showing the mold of Maxine’s severed head, mouth agape, screaming for the camera. “I just want it to last forever,” Maxine says as the credits roll. Ironically, by performing death, Maxine becomes immortal.