‘MaXXXine’ Underscores the Killer Pastiche with Surprising Vulnerability

July 3, 2024

jmunney Cinema, Movie Reviews , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 2 Comments

Blinded by the starpower (CREDIT: Justin Lubin/A24)

Starring: Mia Goth, Kevin Bacon, Giancarlo Esposito, Elizabeth Debicki, Moses Sumney, Michelle Monaghan, Bobby Cannavale, Halsey, Lily Collins, Sophie Thatcher, Ned Vaughn, Chloe Farnworth, Simon Prast

Director: Ti West

Running Time: 104 Minutes

Rating: R for Extravagant Gore, A Fair Amount of T&A, and Some Hits of Blow

Release Date: July 5, 2024 (Theaters)

What’s It About?: Maxine Minx (Mia Goth) will simply never, never, never, never, never, never, EVER accept a life that she doesn’t deserve. It’s a lesson that her father instilled deep into her psyche from a very young age. Cut ahead to 1985, when she’s now one of the biggest names in adult entertainment, but anxious to cross over into mainstream cinema. Her talent is undeniable, especially to the casting team of “The Puritan II.” It’s a schlocky demonsploitation horror sequel, but the director (Elizabeth Debicki) is trying to make an artistic statement, and she sees a kindred spirit in Maxine. Everything she’s dreamed of looks like it’s about to come true, but a mysterious figure who knows her backstory as the lone survivor of a bloody massacre six years earlier threatens to derail everything by killing the people closest to her.

What Made an Impression?: It’s the 80s, Do A Lot of Coke And…: MaXXXine is the satisfying culmination of writer-director Ti West’s bloody little trilogy starring Mia Goth that began in 2022 with X and Pearl. While the former captured the early slasher era of Texas Chainsaw Massacre, the latter adopted a sheen of Old Hollywood melodrama but with just as much gore. MaXXXine expands its slasher trappings by taking inspiration from the exploitative thrillers of Brian De Palma, while also situating itself amidst the Satanic Panic of the Day Glo decade. The soundtrack blasts classics of the era from the likes of Animotion and Frankie Goes to Hollywood, while also boogieing unexpectedly hard with an opening credits sequence set to ZZ Top’s “Gimme All Your Lovin’.” And the pastiche is more than surface-level. Indeed, it’s engagingly lived-in, with conversations that are both of the moment and eternal representations of the characters’ deepest desires.
Plenty of Scenery to Chew: Mia Goth pulled double duty in X, but she’s been able to flex her acting muscles a lot more in the solo spotlights of those two characters. Pearl wasn’t quite a one-woman show, but the inimitable titular farm girl was pretty detached from the rest of humanity. Maxine Minx, meanwhile, is just as fiercely independent, and Goth once again delivers a transcendent degree of steely resolve. But this time around, even though she may be reluctant to admit it, Maxine has people that she cares about and who care about her. And accordingly, this is quite the ensemble piece, with West giving his players plenty of space to find notes that they’ve never reached before. That’s especially true of Kevin Bacon as a private investigator tracking Maxine who’s saturated in the molasses of the New Orleans bayou. His performance absolutely gives a whole new meaning to the phrase”I smell bacon.”
A Cautionary Tale?: Without getting into too many spoiler-y specifics, I’ll tease that Maxine kind of does achieve exactly what she’s driving towards. But I hesitate to call it a happy ending. Nor would I call it a pseudo-happy ending. It’s complicated. Yeah, she gets the star-making gig, but she also has a cocaine habit that I don’t think she has under control. And while the future looks bright for her, I’m worried that her obsession with fame will leave her empty. But we do get enough moments of vulnerability to suggest that Maxine realizes she’s never quite fully allowed herself to just be a human. It’s been a great joy to watch her story unfold these past couple years, but I’m ready to simply hope that she can find some peace after escaping all the horror that wouldn’t let her go.

MaXXXine is Recommended If You Like: Video nasties, Escaping and confronting the past, Righteous defiance

Grade: 4.5 out of 5 Star Turns

Organ Harvesting in a Hospital Makes for a Black Comedy Caper in ’12 Hour Shift’

September 30, 2020

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12 Hour Shift (CREDIT: Matt Glass/Magnet Releasing)

Starring: Angela Bettis, Chloe Farnworth, Nikea Gamby-Turner, Kit Williamson, David Arquette, Mick Foley

Director: Brea Grant

Running Time: 86 Minutes

Rating: Unrated (with Some R-Level Gore and Profanity, and a Few Bits of Nudity)

Release Date: October 2, 2020 (Theaters and On Demand)

There’s been plenty of ink spilled over bottle episodes, but what about the bottle movie? Outings of TV that take place in only one location naturally call attention to themselves, as they tend to break the typical mold of any given show. Whereas when a film keeps its setting confined, it doesn’t exactly feel out of the ordinary, since it’s normal for that particular movie. But it’s nevertheless worth examining when it does happen, as in the one-crazy-night black comedy 12 Hour Shift. When people are stuck in one place for an extended period, secrets and extreme parts of people’s personalities tend to be revealed, and oh boy is that the case here.

Besides a quick trip in the beginning, all of 12 Hour Shift takes place in and around a hospital in Arkansas in 1999 (that turn-of-the-millennium setting eventually pays off with a sly little Y2K joke). Mandy (Angela Bettis) is a nurse on probation who’s really pushing her luck by procuring organs from dying patients for a black market scheme. Her ditzy cousin-by-marriage Regina (Chloe Farnworth) bungles a kidney delivery and returns to the facility to harvest a replacement. Trouble is, there’s no obvious candidate to quickly pull off this transaction. So under the threat of possibly having to give up her own kidney, Regina quickly decides that she is willing to do just about anything (and I do mean ANYTHING) to procure some stranger’s organ.

Overnight shift work, particularly in a hospital, strikes me as a formula for hallucination. So when the shenanigans start ramping up, they’re understandably met with little more than shrugs. When patients see a fight breaking out in their room, they’re liable to think “Is this really happening?” and opt to go back to sleep. (That is, unless they’re dragged into the fight.) Meanwhile, the nurses have such a seen-it-all attitude that even the ones taking their duties really seriously are inclined to greet potential disasters with a “let’s just get through the night” response. The trouble is, that doesn’t really work when you have someone like Regina making mess after mess while unleashing her inner monster to cover her own ass. The pressure and farce in this flick heighten gradually, but soon enough, there’s no denying that this is a 12 Hour Shift for the ages.

12 Hour Shift is Recommended If You Like: Raising Arizona, Gory comedies, Imagining that a wacky murder mystery is going to play out while you’re working a graveyard shift

Grade: 3 out of 5 Kidneys