X / Pearl / MaXXXine

X (18)

D: Ti West

A24 / Little Lamb / Solar (Ti West, Jacob Jaffke, Kevin Turen & Harrison Kreiss)

US 🇺🇸 2022

106 mins

Horror

W: Ti West

DP: Eliot Rockett

Ed: David Kashevaroff & Ti West

Mus: Tyler Bates & Chelsea Wolfe

Mia Goth (Maxine / Pearl), Jenna Ortega (Lorraine Day), Brittany Snow (Bobby-Lynne Parker), Scott Mescudi (Jackson Hole), Martin Henderson (Wayne Gilroy), Owen Campbell (R.J. Nichols), Stephen Ure (Howard)

Set in the late 1970s, Ti West’s 2023 horror film, X, follows a small group of pornographic film workers who use a farmhouse in a desolate Texas ranch as a filming location, only to experience increasingly disturbing events as the couple who own the farm become homicidal.

Overall, it’s a basic slasher plot, certainly borrowing inspiration from the 1974 version of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre  in particular, but director-writer Ti West does an excellent job creating a tense atmosphere throughout the first two acts, only for it to become a bit of a spatterfest in the finale.  A shame, since the tension & creepiness was certainly there without the necessity for gore.

Nevertheless, it’s one of the better horror movies of recent times helped by the captivating lead performance of Mia Goth, who actually had the dual role of both the film’s heroine, as well the villain, buried beneath excellent transformative make up that really should have been recognised by the Academy Awards. 

A follow-up film, Pearl, was released the same year, also starring Goth and directed by West.

7/10

PEARL (18)

D: Ti West

A24 / Little Lamb / Mad Solar (Jacob Jaffke, Ti West, Kevin Turen & Harrison Kreiss)

US 🇺🇸 2022

102 mins

Horror

W: Ti West & Mia Goth

DP: Eliot Rockett

Ed: Ti West

Mus: Tyler Bates & Tim Williams

Mia Goth (Pearl), David Corenswet (The Projectionist), Tandi Wright (Ruth), Matthew Sunderland (The Father), Emma Jenkins-Purro (Mitsy), Alistair Sewell (Howard)

A prequel, of sorts, to the same year’s X, also directed by Ti West and starring Mia Goth in the lead role.  However, it’s a film and story that can stand entirely on its own merits and doesn’t really require the previous film to be watched in order to appreciate this one.

Mia Goth plays the title character, a young woman in rural Texas during 1918 with aspirations for stardom that are constantly being shut down by her strict mother and the fact that Pearl has to care for her sick, wheelchair-bound father.

With her husband serving in World War I, she becomes romantically involved with a cinema projectionist who tells her of an upcoming casting audition which may well be the stepping stone she needs to realise her dreams.

While it’s hinted early on that Pearl has psychopathic tendencies and lives in a world of her own (which will surely come as no surprise to those who have seen “X”) Mia Goth’s enigmatic performance manages to illicit some sympathy for a complex & crazy character. 

It does leave a few questions unanswered, but between this and X, I feel that Pearl is the better of the two movies, as well as being amongst the best horror movies of the past decade.

7/10

MAXXXINE (18)

D: Ti West

A24 / Motel Mojave / Access (Ti West, Jacob Jaffke, Kevin Turen, Harrison Kreiss & Mia Goth)

US 🇺🇸 2024

104 mins

Horror/Thriller

W: Ti West

DP: Eliot Rockett

Ed: Ti West

Mus: Tyler Bates

Mia Goth (Maxine Minx), Elizabeth Debicki (Elizabeth Bender), Moses Sumney (Leon), Michelle Monaghan (Det. Williams), Bobby Cannavale (Det. Torres), Kevin Bacon (John LaBat), Lily Collins (Molly Bennett), Giancarlo Esposito (Teddy Knight)

Writer-Director Ti West & star Mia Goth’s horror series continues, following 2022’s “X” and its prequel (also from 2022) “Pearl”.

MaXXXine is a sequel to X, taking place in the 1980s, with its eponymous character, adult film star Maxine Minx auditioning for a role in a mainstream horror film, which she successfully lands.  However, her big break in Hollywood is interrupted by a serial killer with a grudge who targets Maxine & the people who she knows.

The bar was set quite high following the 2022 double bill of movies, especially Pearl, and sadly MaXXXine just doesn’t hit the mark, settling for a rather standard slasher plot with a twist ending right out of left field that feels completely unearned. 

Mia Goth does the heavy lifting and once again delivers a fine performance, but the rest of the cast are merely glorified cameos. A shame, since some seemed to be quite interesting characters that weren’t quite filled out to their full potential, quite like the film itself, which had all the pieces in place to be a self aware satire on Hollywood horror, but settles instead for being a typical serial-killing maniac in the shadows bloodfest.

6/10