Reflections on ... MaXXXine (2024)

Recently watched: MaXXXine (2024). Tagline: “She’s gonna be a star no matter what it takes!” 

MaXXXine, of course, represents the hotly anticipated concluding chapter of the juicy elevated horror trilogy beginning with X (2022) and the prequel Pearl (2022) by director Ti West and leading lady Mia Goth. I’ve been yearning to see this one for what felt like an eternity. Its trailer (soundtracked by the Laura Branigan classic “Self-Control”) was so tantalizing it tormented me! We watched MaXXXine last weekend (its opening weekend) and it was - OK! I felt like I was willing it to be better. Of the three films, MaXXXine is definitely the slightest and flimsiest entry. Maybe my expectations were unrealistically high and the remarkable Pearl (which I consider a modern masterwork) set an impossibly high bar for this follow-up. 

Anyway, there is still much to enjoy. Set in 1985 Los Angeles, MaXXXine unfolds against a backdrop of satanic panic paranoia, the rise of Tipper Gore’s censorious Parents Music Resource Centre, Ronald Reagan’s presidency and the Night Stalker’s reign of terror. Goth returns as driven, burning-with-ambition porn starlet Maxine Minx. Now 33, she knows it’s now or never if she’s ever going to transition from skin flicks into legit cinema (well, a low-budget slasher movie entitled Puritan II in this case). “In this industry, women age like bread not wine” she laments. But just as stardom finally seems within Maxine’s grasp, her friends start getting gruesomely picked-off one by one by a serial killer … 

MaXXXine boasts an authentically scuzzy, grungy discount bin VHS vibe. The soundtrack pumps with 80s tunes (ZZ Top. Frankie Goes to Hollywood. “Obsession” by Animotion. Kim Carnes’ “Bette Davis Eyes.” John Parr’s theme tune to St Elmo’s Fire. And yes, Laura Branigan). Aficionados of 1980s trash cinema will revel in West’s references to the likes of Savage Streets (1984), Brian De Palma’s Body Double (1984), Vice Academy (1989), Angel (1984) and Avenging Angel (1985). Goth is a riveting, singular presence and one of THE great actresses currently working (The Guardian’s Peter Bradshaw aptly called her the Judy Garland of horror). MaXXXine is a pulpy, grisly down-and-dirty summer thriller – just don’t expect another Pearl!

Reflections on ... New Year's Evil (1980)

 

Staying in tonight? Want some thematically appropriate festive viewing? I recommend grisly low-budget slasher flick New Year’s Evil (1980). Tagline: “Don’t dare make new year’s resolutions … unless you plan to live!” In Los Angeles, glamorous hard-boiled celebrity DJ and television’s first lady of rock’n’roll Blaze Sullivan (Roz Kelly) is hosting “Hollywood Hotline”, a live televised coast-to-coast New Year’s Eve countdown. Viewers are encouraged to phone in to vote for their favourite New Wave song of the year - but one of the callers is a misogynistic serial killer calling himself “Evil”, who threatens to murder a “naughty girl” as each time zone hits midnight – culminating with Blaze herself!

What distinguishes New Year’s Evil is its focus on the punk subculture. Considering it was filmed in LA in 1980, the mind boggles at the actual bands the filmmakers could have feasibly utilized for the musical sequences: X, The Screamers, the Germs, the Zeros, The Weirdos! The presence of any of these would make New Year’s Evil a valuable time capsule. But no – we see only two appalling ersatz punk bands (nonentities Shadow and Made in Japan), and at tedious length. The film’s received wisdom about how punk rockers behave (they are troublemakers with piercings and Mohawks who mosh and stick their tongues out a lot) is unintentionally hilarious. New Year’s Evil also fails to clarify why hardened young hardcore punk fans are so rabidly enthusiastic about sequin-clad middle-aged Blaze. Is it because she exhorts things like “It’s time to spin out and boil your hair!” while wielding a feather boa?

Which brings us to Roz Kelly. In her brief heyday, she was best known for portraying Pinky Tuscadero, Fonzie’s tough cookie girlfriend in seventies sitcom Happy Days. Her screen presence was certainly … um … distinctive. Whether playing Pinky, Anthony Franciosa’s brassy secretary Flaps (yes – Flaps!) in Curse of the Black Widow (1977), cavorting in Paul Lynde’s infamous 1976 Halloween special or indeed here as Blaze, Kelly is consistently abrasive, brittle and borderline hostile. Her bizarre acting choices are perhaps the scariest aspect of New Year’s Evil! 

Watch it for free on YouTube.