MaXXXine
Directed by Ti West
- horror
The story
In 1980s Hollywood, adult film star and aspiring actress Maxine Minx finally gets her big break. But as a mysterious killer stalks the starlets of Hollywood, a trail of blood threatens to reveal her sinister past.
What it’s like
Saturated 1980s Los Angeles after dark: neon signs bleeding red and teal across wet asphalt, sodium-orange streetlight on rooftop sets, the glossy, slightly hazy look of early-eighties video stock layered over crisp digital close-ups. Ti West frames Mia Goth with a restless, showy camera that moves between hand-held intimacy and long, theatrical tracking shots through soundstages and backlots, and the film leans into cinephile pastiche, with grindhouse zooms and throwback title cards. Synth pulse and cracked pop cues drive the score, punctuated by sudden silences before a shock. The mood is brash and feverish, a sly mix of glamour and grime, with dark humour undercutting the dread. Pacing is brisk, with the tension built through a whodunit thread rather than slow atmosphere. Intensity is high: frequent explicit sexual content and nudity, graphic and bloody slasher violence, and disturbing flashbacks to childhood trauma. This is for viewers who want a stylised, nasty, self-aware 80s slasher about ambition, fame and the price of reinvention, and who can stomach sex, gore and cruelty.
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