This girl can’t catch a break. First she survives X, writer-director Ti West’s Texas Chainsaw Massacre homage. Then Maxine (Mia Goth) heads to Hollywood, ready to make a shift from adult film to super-classy horror flicks. But there’s a hitch in her plan: Hollywood has its own bloody threat looming in the form of a serial killer called the Night Stalker.
Can’t she just follow in the footsteps of Jamie Lee Curtis, becoming a famous actress via horror films? Probably not. Maxxine is the third film in the Ti West/Mia Goth powerhouse partnership, following X and Pearl (the origin story of one of the characters from X). It’s set in 1985 (six years after X), which you don’t need me to tell you if you watch the trailer: All the style and musical cues are right there. (Laura Branigan’s “Self Control” is a nice touch.)
Kevin Bacon lurks around as a private dick hired to find Maxine; Bobby Cannavale and Michelle Monaghan are detectives who—reasonably, I think—get interested in Maxine when it turns out she knows three of the Night Stalker’s victims. Being that Maxine does get some work as an actress, she winds up on the studio lot with the Bates Motel set. Totally normal. Nothing weird about that.
Maxxxine also stars Elizabeth Debicki, Moses Sumney, Halsey, Lily Collins, and Giancarlo Esposito. It’s in theaters July 5th.
