An ’80s-style slasher homage turning whodunnit
This last movie of the Maxine trilogy definitely has some good things going on: this was a love letter to 80s slasher movies that never fell into the most common and predictable clichés of the genre. It turns more into an investigation/whodunit. In fact, “MaXXXine” does not have the same level of explicit violence as the two previous movies, which matches the general direction of the film, but left me a bit disappointed.
I was very surprised to see many great names from the cinema industry involved in this project: Kevin Bacon, Elizabeth Debicki, and Giancarlo Esposito, just to name a few. It makes perfect sense, considering that this series always had the topic of breaking out in the showbiz industry as a common denominator. Mia Goth delivered a good performance, however out of the whole trilogy, her character was quite forgettable.
Ti West just did not match the same writing quality that he reached with the previous chapters. This is very noticeable especially in the ending, which felt rushed and nonsensical. Obviously, these shortcomings are reflected in character development as well, which was very sloppy in my perspective. I never thought this trilogy was particularly original, but I honestly enjoyed the first two movies because the overall setup and plotline brought some fresh air to the horror genre. Unfortunately, this is not how I felt in this case, and for me, this is the weakest film of the entire saga.