Over the past two years, filmmaker Ti West has risen to great prominence in the horror genre, not only as a director but also as a writer, producer, and editor following the release of X (2022) and Pearl. Having established himself as a genre filmmaker in the 2000s with the indie horror movies The Roost, Trigger Man, and The House of the Devil, West would go on to make his name well-known in the 2010s with The Innkeepers and In a Valley of Violence, which is oddly enough a gritty Western. His successful collaboration with A24 first started with X, released in March 2022, and then continued with its prequel Pearl, which was filmed back-to-back and released shortly afterward in September 2022. Now, two years later, writer-director Ti West is back on our screens with MaXXXine, which concludes his and Mia Goth’s X Trilogy.
As the third installment of the X film series and a direct sequel to X (2022), MaXXXine picks up in 1985 Los Angeles. The plot follows Maxine Minx (Mia Goth), who has now moved to the big city and found success as a porn star after surviving the Texas farmhouse massacre in 1979, as seen in the previous film. Maxine is still pursuing her dream of becoming a Hollywood movie star, something that the porn industry cannot afford her. But after finally landing her breakout role as the lead in the highly anticipated sequel to a classic ultra-violent satanic possession flick, titled The Puritan II, the stars seem to have finally aligned for Maxine. That is until the demons of her past come knocking at her front door.
A mysterious killer from Maxine’s past, who knows what really happened at the “Texas Porn Star Massacre,” surfaces to make sure she never works in this town again. This villain slashes his way through one Hollywood starlet after the other, using the murders of the Night Stalker, a real-life serial killer who terrorized the streets of Los Angeles in the 1980s, to cover their tracks. As Maxine navigates Hollywood’s dirty underbelly to stop this killer and secure her rise to stardom, audiences are introduced to a colorful cast of characters. This includes Maxine’s strict director on The Puritan II, Elizabeth Bender (Elizabeth Debicki), her co-star Molly Bennett (Lily Collins), her talent agent Teddy Knight, Esq. (Giancarlo Esposito), a scumbag private investigator named John Labat (Kevin Bacon), and her friend and fellow adult film star Tabby (popstar Halsey).
We sat down with writer-director Ti West to dive into the horrors of MaXXXine, his now long-standing collaboration with lead actress Mia Goth, and how he worked to capture the Los Angeles atmosphere and ’80s slasher aesthetics that set the movie apart from the rest of the X Trilogy. As the last film of the X Saga, we also discussed how this final chapter is connected with the other two films of the X series and where the filmmaker’s career might take him in future projects. Could this include another X movie? Find out below!
Exclusive Interview with writer-director Ti West for MaXXXine
In MaXXXine, Elizabeth Debicki’s character, director Elizabeth Bender, talks about making a statement with The Puritan II. Is that something you agree with in your own filmmaking when it comes to horror?
Ti West: There probably is but I don’t think about me being her when I’m writing it. I’m sure there probably is more than I care to admit. It’s hard for me to see that since I didn’t sit down and try to actually do that. I think that sometimes you’re trying to camouflage ideas into a certain kind of movie, and sometimes you’re not. In the case of Elizabeth, a big part of her character is filmmaking, which is still a little mysterious. I wanted to spend some time with a character like that and not just make a parody out of them but try to understand that the person making The Puritan II does have reasons for doing it. It puts you in a situation where you can relate to that and maybe agree or disagree with it. That, to me, is part of making her a three-dimensional character, so that’s really where I was coming from.
I didn’t sit down and decide Elizabeth was going to speak for me in the movie. I just wanted people to understand where she was coming from and that she’s self-aware enough to know the kind of movie she’s making. Elizabeth wants to take chances as an artist. She’s also aware of the opportunity that she has and doesn’t want to squander it. All those things are sometimes counterproductive to one another, working against each other, and she’s always battling them. On one hand, she wants to cast this unknown porn actress as the lead role in her movie, which is very punk rock and controversial. But on the other hand, this is a big moment and she doesn’t want anyone to blow it for her. She needs to show the world and secure [her place] there. I think that is relatable, even if you are not a filmmaker.
Do you have a particular favorite memory or experience from shooting this movie?
Ti West: There’s so many! It’s been such a crazy experience making these three movies during COVID as well. I worked with a lot of the same crew on all three movies. I’ve worked with them for many years, so it’s been a very personal experience. I remember standing in the middle of Hollywood Boulevard with Eliot [Rockett], the DP. It’s closed down, and we have control over the whole thing. That’s crazy.
We’re standing here in the city, having shut it down — what an unlikely thing to be doing! We are turning Los Angeles into the ’80s, and I was just thinking, how did we get here? From a few years prior, when I had this idea about these people making a porn movie, now we are sitting here completely shutting down Hollywood Boulevard; life is crazy. There was a lot of that while making the movie, it was very surreal.
A specific cinema aesthetic inspires all three films in the X Trilogy. Can you talk a little bit about your visual references to 1980s Hollywood, and are there any particular films you looked to for inspiration?
Ti West: MaXXXine [is inspired] by the time and place. A big part of recreating the ’80s was trying to capture its authenticity. One way of doing that is not having everything in the movie be from the summer of 1985 when the film takes place but also having plenty of things from the ’60s or ’70s so that it feels lived in. You don’t want to feel purely like a pastiche, you want to feel like the world is believable. If you believe that world, you’re in the story with them.
I also felt like the ’80s have been recreated a lot in recent years. It’s usually recreated in a very nostalgic way for media, meaning that pop culture and the most extreme fashion of the time are all on display. And sometimes that can feel very suburban and very commercial. I was more interested in a location like Los Angeles, and the glitz and glamour of that contrasted with the darker, sleazier side of Hollywood, which doesn’t exist like it used to. Recreating that was world-building that lends itself to the story, and it was just a fresh way to look at a decade that’s now fairly commonly recreated.
On a similar note, the protests that we see in MaXXXine speak to the Satanic Panic of the time. How did you work on creating 1980s Los Angeles from a cultural standpoint?
Ti West: One of the connective tissues between the three movies is cinema and how it’s affecting the characters. In the mid-’80s, there was such a moral outrage against certain kinds of movies and music. The protests were a way to incorporate the reaction that people at the time were having to this type of content. There was also a real serial killer who was put on the media in a TV show kind of way. Everything, including the religious aspects, was a form of entertainment, and even the things that were meant to be an outcry against it. There’s something just about the mishmash of all these things that is ironic, unsettling, and yet charming at the same time. That setting and those conversations that continue in the modern world are relevant to the storytelling and the trilogy as a whole.
Something that stood out to me was the way that MaXXXine portrays cult mentality. Do you think that speaks to today’s very divided political scenario at all?
Ti West: I don’t know, certainly not on purpose. I don’t try to sit down and work in anything like that when I’m writing, but there’s always going to be a counter-reaction for anything transgressive or progressive. What people seem to be upset about just changes over time. But to see it in the context of the ’80s, and see people very upset about a certain kind of movie or certain kind of music, now feels antiquated. You feel like, “I can’t believe people were so upset about that,” because today we have really serious things to be upset about. In 20 years, you’ll look back and say the same thing. It’s just the cyclical nature of how people are.
MaXXXine has many references to religion, specifically Christian beliefs, which have been prevalent in the horror genre across history. Was that always something you wanted to explore within the X Saga?
Ti West: Not always. In the case of these movies, it’s a part of it because, in X, you discover that the character who is trying to become famous and is using pornography to become a star is actually a preacher’s daughter. Obviously, that is a complicated relationship. Then in Pearl, she has a religious and repressive upbringing because of that. She is trying to liberate herself. Then, in MaXXXine, you have religious people reacting to culture being “perverted” by certain kinds of movies and music.
There will always be a moral antagonist to anything controversial. So, naturally, it is relevant to these movies. Let’s say in the case that I might make another movie, it may not have references to religion at all. It came from the character of Maxine Minx in this one because she stemmed from X, which is a movie about people who are young and liberated at a time in American history when the previous generation was not. Thus, you have the clashing of those two cultures and morality. Once we made three movies, we had to evolve that throughout because it’s dramatically relevant.
Mia Goth has served as a producer on the X Trilogy. How has your creative relationship with her developed, and how much did she influence the growth of Maxine as a character?
Ti West: By the time we made a third movie, we had gotten to know each other so well. We’ve developed our working relationship to the point that we don’t have a lot of conversations about who Maxine is so much anymore because we’ve already done that. She knows the character so well that I look to her on many decisions performance-wise because she’s lived with the character as long — if not longer — than I have at this point. We are collaborative in the sense that I give her guardrails, and then she can play in between those. I’m there watching over the whole thing to say, “What if we save this for later, what if we try this here, or what if we go further with this?” and things like that.
Plenty of people who have not seen the previous two movies have been watching MaXXXine. Do you think it’s possible to engage with this third film from a stand-alone perspective?
Ti West: I think you can watch MaXXXine and not see the other ones. They are enriched by each other, and it is probably better to see the other ones, but it’s not as if you can’t be entertained or follow along with what is happening. There just might be some references and jokes that won’t land or some moments where you might not understand why she’s so upset about something. When you see the other movies, you then understand that there are parts of those films that prop this one up, but you can still understand the story of someone wanting to be famous, getting an opportunity, and then the potential of losing it — that’s relatable to anyone.
Whether you know why her past is so dangerous or not, the movie itself will give you enough info to watch it. For me, they are meant to be standalone movies, but they are also all connected. In MaXXXine, in particular, there are an enormous number of Easter Eggs, and that is because, as this is the final part of the trilogy, I wanted to tell a standalone story while also enriching it with the other installments. I want the movies to retroactively comment on one another because the fun of having made this trilogy is that they are connected.
Do you think there’s anything else left to say in Maxine’s story, or is this truly the end?
Ti West: Anything is possible. At the moment, it’s hard to say for Maxine and her story because I do feel like we have taken her almost as far as it could go. I think it would be better to catch up with her much later down the line. It wouldn’t be worth catching up with her three years later, or six years later, it would be better to see Maxine much further down the road. So, maybe somewhere, many years from now, that is something that Mia and I could revisit. But for the time being, we have left her where she belongs.
The universe of X could always be expanded, or we can always come back and visit her, but it is a bittersweet feeling to be on the other side of the three movies. It will also be interesting in two weeks to wake up not having a responsibility to Maxine, Pearl, or any of this X universe and just get back to living my life. This has been one of the greatest opportunities that has happened for me, but it’s also been four and a half years of nonstop work on these three movies. It will be nice to wake up with a fresh idea.
You’ve done it in such a record time as well!
Ti West: It really has been non-stop and so well worth it, but it certainly will be nice to just wake up and think about a new day instead of worrying about being behind or getting something done for one of these three movies. I’m hoping that one day, people can have a box set of the X Trilogy to put on their shelves. I did that, now I’m going to do something else.
Speaking of that, are you wanting to explore different genres in the near future?
Ti West: So many things. As much as I’m looking forward to having a vacation, I’m also looking to get back on the horse and do something new. Whatever I do next will be nothing like these films, and that’s exciting to me. I’m very proud of these three movies and the experiences I’ve had making them. Still, I’m also very eager to hopefully reinvent and redefine whatever it is that I’m doing next. Then, after that, do it all again because you don’t want to make the same movie repeatedly.
MaXXXine is now playing in theaters!
Release Date: July 5, 2024.
Directed by Ti West.
Written by Ti West.
Produced by Mia Goth, Jacob Jaffke, Ti West, Kevin Turen, & Harrison Kreiss.
Executive Producers: Len Blavatnik, Danny Cohen, Jeremy Reitz, Peter Phok, Sam Levinson, & Ashley Levinson.
Main Cast: Mia Goth, Elizabeth Debicki, Moses Sumney, Michelle Monaghan, Bobby Cannavale, Halsey, Lily Collins, Giancarlo Esposito, Kevin Bacon, & Sophie Thatcher.
Cinematographer: Eliot Rockett.
Composer: Tyler Bates.
Production Companies: Motel Mojave & Access Entertainment.
Distributor: A24.
Runtime: 104 minutes.
Rated R.
