Over the past decade, Ryan Murphy has positioned himself as the “go-to” for all things campy/pop culture-oriented. More than that, all things “retro” pop culture-oriented. Hence, “vintage”-favoring shows from the “Murphy factory” that include Feud, Pose, Hollywood, Halston, American Crime Story, Dahmer and, lately, just about every season of American Horror Story. It’s the latter series, still arguably his most well-known, that has lately favored returning to the Decade of Excess. Namely, AHS: 1984 and AHS: NYC. And yes, a considerable amount of his work has included the dissection of the Hollywood machine, its mercilessness and its tendency toward sexism, racism, cultism and all the other bad isms. Case in point, AHS: Hotel, which also frequently sets its stage in an Old Hollywood setting and showcases Richard Ramirez as a character (as is also the case in AHS: 1984).
All of this is to say that Murphy has been infiltrating, for some time, the same themes and time period that Ti West’s Maxxxine—the third film in a trilogy that rounds out X and Pearl—explores through the same horror/slasher-tinged lens. Except that Maxxxine achieves what Murphy only wishes he could do. Never quite “landing the plane,” so to speak, on most of his projects. The ideas are there, sure, but not the artful, satisfying execution required to make them as great as they could be. And, speaking of landing planes, as we join Maxine Minx (Mia Goth), formerly Maxine Miller, in “Tinseltown, California” six years after the bloodbath (or Texas Pornsaw Massacre) that ensued while she was just trying to make a skin flick in the middle of nowhere, we see that she’s got herself a little job at a titty bar near the L.A. airport called The Landing Strip. Only Maxine isn’t working the pole so much as going into a back area for “Flight Crew Only,” where all the pornos are filmed.
This is where she goes after auditioning for her first “proper” movie, a horror sequel called The Puritan II. An audition she knows she nailed, and told all the girls waiting outside in the casting line as much, too. That they all might as well go home. Of course, that’s the thing about Hollywood: every aspiring actress is hungry, hot and convinced they’re better than all the other girls she’s competing with. But Maxine is “different,” as they say. Special. That once-in-a-blue-moon kind of actress with “it” factor (or “X” factor, in this scenario). A star. Indeed, the word “star” and what it means in Hollywood is immediately addressed at the beginning of Maxxxine with a title card touting the Bette Davis quote, “In this business, until you’re known as a monster, you’re not a star.”
Maxine is already a monster waiting to sacrifice herself to the Hollywood beast, it’s just that most people don’t know what she’s been willing to do in the past in order to quite literally make it. Not even her best friend and the only guy in town not trying to fuck her (as he says), Leon (Moses Sumney). To be sure, apart from her agent, Teddy Knight, “Esq.” (Giancarlo Esposito), there are few other people in Hollywood that Maxine can count on (and maybe it says something that only two men she trusts aren’t white). Sure, she has “coworkers,” like Amber James (Chloe Farnworth) and Tabby Martin (Halsey, who isn’t exactly “L.A. enough” for this movie), that she occasionally commiserates with, but, by and large, Maxine is out there on her own. And with the specter of Richard Ramirez (night)stalking the plot (just as Murphy would have it). For it’s 1985, the height of his murderous rampage, and news reports urging L.A. residents to stay vigilant and avoid going out late at night are constant.
Maxine doesn’t seem to mind though, convinced she’s already dealt with a psychotic killer once before, so what’s another to her? When she tells Tabby she can “handle herself” walking home, Tabby ripostes, “Said every dead girl in Hollywood.” Tabby is also the one to point out that she supposed Elizabeth Short a.k.a. the Black Dahlia never would have become famous if she hadn’t been killed, so maybe it isn’t such a bad thing. You know, for publicity.
That Ramirez’s crimes were fueled by his dogged belief that he was Satan’s “foot soldier,” put on this Earth to carry out vicious and brutal murders in the name of the Dark Lord only adds to the near-boiling-point sense of moral panic that was simmering in America in the eighties. As West himself remarked, he wanted to “embrace the darker side of eighties movies. A lot of people think of eighties movies and think of John Hughes or they think of leg warmers and big hairdos and things like that, but that’s not all the eighties was. And so, to set a story in Hollywood, I really wanted to embrace the absurdity that is Hollywood and contrast that there’s this incredibly glamorous place…but then there’s a sleazy, darker underbelly. And 1985 in particular was a very unique year because there was a lot of moral outcry in the States about the type of movies that were being made, the type of music that was being made, and also in the summer of 1985, there was a serial killer, a satanic serial killer, in Los Angeles that they couldn’t catch, and the way that they were trying to advertise and trying to get people to help find him was by putting him in the news and newspaper, so hopefully that, by sort of making him famous, people would help find him.”
Undeniably, notoriety-based fame was becoming more and more of a “thing” in the latter part of the twentieth century, as not-so-talented people still wanted to secure what Andy Warhol dubbed their fifteen minutes of fame. So why not get it through more nefarious means? At the beginning of the movie, West wields archival footage of the day, ranging from Ronald Reagan saying that America’s glory years aren’t behind it to Twisted Sister’s Dee Snider giving a speech at a Senate hearing about labeling “offensive” music with what would eventually become the Parental Advisory sticker. In another clip, a mother complains about buying her daughter the Purple Rain album, only to realize too late that something as explicit as “Darling Nikki” was on it. The overarching motif? Parents of the eighties were appalled by a world increasingly unconcerned with not only desensitizing their children, but making them grow up far too fast. Sexualizing them far too fast.
In a decade like the 1950s, many believed it was “easier” to protect their children from the dangers of falling prey to “Satan” and “sin.” And, sure, maybe it was in terms of “salacious” content being far less dense at a time when TV and “rock n’ roll” music were still in germinal, analog stages for dissemination. But that didn’t mean those children who wanted to “seek out” trouble couldn’t still find it anyway. Like Maxine herself, who, despite being a preacher’s daughter, found her way toward “transgression” in spite of all her father’s indoctrination. And yes, Ernest Miller (Simon Prast) is once again featured prominently via a home movie from 1959 at the beginning of Maxxxine. A clip that smacks of Bette Davis as Baby Jane interacting with her own father in What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? It is in this early “movie” of Maxine that she first gloms onto the mantra, “I will not accept a life I do not deserve.” Imparted to her by Ernest, the fire-and-brimstone televangelist (a so-called profession that would ramp up in the eighties).
Ernest’s specter is as prominent as Ramirez’s, which is to be expected considering X ended with him proselytizing about his daughter’s wayward existence. How she was taken from his “loving home into the hands of devils.” In 1979, those devils might have been pornographers, but, in 1985, it’s Hollywood in general, itself no longer abashed about being the biggest pornographer in the game, selling sex onscreen in order to compete with all the other media and mediums that had come about since its Golden Age. And right there in the center of it all on Hollywood Boulevard is Maxine Minx herself. For, in addition to working at The Landing Strip, she also works nights at a peep show called Hollywood Show World. A woman willing to do “whatever it takes.” But her interests are increasingly focused on the “prize” of “real” stardom. Which is why she’s over the moon when the director of The Puritan II, Elizabeth Bender (Elizabeth Debicki), casts her as the lead.
Bender (whose last name could very well be a nod to John Bender [Judd Nelson] in The Breakfast Club) knows she’s taking a big gamble on Maxine, and that, as she tells her, “Hollywood is prejudiced against artists.” The machine, instead, prefers to keep churning out the things they know are safe, and will keep audiences from being outraged. And, in 1985, audiences are outraged amid the moral panic that’s sweeping the nation. So outraged that they’re willing to show up outside the studio and picket against its “filthy” content. Including fare like The Puritan II. That everyone is well-aware of Maxine’s porn background only adds fuel to the fire. Nonetheless, Elizabeth can sense both a hunger and a star quality in Maxine that she’s willing to stick her neck out for—even though it could mean that neck being positioned on the chopping block if Maxine fucks up.
Unfortunately for both women, this is the exact moment when Maxine’s grisly night in Texas comes back to haunt her, with a private investigator going by the assumed name of John Labat (Kevin Bacon) threatening Maxine and her big break with a duplicated tape of the porno she made while staying in the guesthouse at Howard (Stephen Ure) and Pearl’s sequestered farm. But more than that, Labat knows how to pin the crime she committed on her. This, obviously, takes her mind off what it needs to be on, which is becoming the character in The Puritan II, a horror flick that takes place in the 1950s. Because, in true Ti West meta fashion, Elizabeth tells Maxine that she wants to really say something with this movie, that though the fifties seemed like this idyllic, picturesque time in America, the truth was that it was just as seedy as people think it is now.
This echoes West’s sentiments about people in the present still romanticizing the eighties as a better, more “innocent” time despite all the unseemly behavior going on just beneath the surface. Which is exactly why West brought up the ultimately wholesome nature of John Hughes movies as a major emblem of the decade, belying the fact that this was a time of horrific serial killings, the advent of AIDS, systemic discrimination as buttressed by the Reagan administration and the next wave of political scandals mired in sex/infidelity-related shaming (see: Gary Hart and Donna Rice). To this end, although not a Hughes movie, St. Elmo’s Fire has a constant running appearance in Maxxxine, always displayed on the movie theater marquee near Miss Minx’s apartment. And then, of course, the John Parr theme, “St. Elmo’s Fire (Man In Motion),” plays on the radio as Maxine drives the streets of L.A. Funnily enough, that would also be the summer that David Blum branded this group of young actors frequently known for appearing together and/or in John Hughes movies as the “Brat Pack.”
With West creating a parallel, in many ways, between the 1950s and the 1980s, it bears noting that, when the fifties came to a close, it was as though that thinly-maintained veneer of “politesse” started to crumble in the next new decade. This couldn’t have been better exemplified than in the release of Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho in September of 1960, the same year a “heathen Democrat” like JFK was elected president. In contrast, the eighties commenced with one of the most conservative presidents since Eisenhower. Elizabeth reminds Maxine that there was moral outrage in those Eisenhower years, too. The kind of outrage that transferred easily onto Psycho, an unheard of kind of film in that era. Elizabeth adds that Hitchcock was of course vindicated and further hailed as an artistic genius once the shock and furor surrounding the movie died down. As a result, the film “set a new level of acceptability for violence, deviant behavior and sexuality in American films, and has been considered to be one of the earliest examples of the slasher film genre.” With Janet Leigh paving the way for an actress like Jamie Lee Curtis to parlay her own career into a “respectable” one after starring in 1978’s Halloween. And yes, as soon as Maxine gets the part, she goes to the video store where Leon works to ask him to name five movie stars who got their start in horror. He rattles off Jamie Lee Curtis, John Travolta, Demi Moore and Brooke Shields before Maxine interjects, “Maxine Fucking Minx.” Marilyn Chambers is mentioned in this exchange, too, and 1985 was a big year for her in terms of getting arrested (in San Francisco and Cleveland, respectively) for “promoting prostitution” and “performing lewd acts” in a public place.
In any case, it’s Maxine’s way of telling Leon she’s on her way to the top, that everything is finally falling into place. Save for this unpleasant little “Nightstalker” of her own. And not just the Buster Keaton lookalike (played by Zachary Mooren) from Hollywood Boulevard whose junk she ends up crushing with her boot when he tries to attack her with a knife in an alleyway (this and many other elements reminding viewers of the Quentin Tarantino style—with Once Upon A Time in Hollywood being the most obvious of his films to compare Maxxxine to). No, there’s some other sinister force at work trying to hold her dreams back because that force itself finds her to be the sinister one. The “sinful,” “godless,” “amoral” monster further contributing to Hollywood’s grotesque power. Its chokehold over so many other “young girls” (though, in Hollywood, young tends to be the age of twenty and under) willing to do anything to get a place in the spotlight.
Just six years ago, Maxine was still that girl, telling Wayne (Martin Henderson), her “producer” boyfriend who orchestrated their film shoot, “I want the whole world to know my name. Like Lynda Carter or some shit.” And yes, Wonder Woman (or rather, someone dressed as her) does make a cameo on Hollywood Boulevard in Maxxxine. With such callbacks to the other movies in the X universe also being notable—for example, when, standing on Theda Bera’s star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Maxine puts her cigarette out on it. This, of course, is a nod to the alligator in Pearl being named Theda, for Pearl lived her own youth during the heyday of the silent movie star’s reign. What’s more, her subtle presence in the film is of importance because she was considered an scandalous sex symbol of the then-new medium called film. Other connections to non-X trilogy movies go back to John Hughes yet again, with a scene toward the finale of Maxxxine opting to soundtrack her red carpet arrival with New Order’s “Shellshock,” which also features prominently in the Hughes-penned Pretty in Pink as Duckie (Jon Cryer) rides his bike obsessively near Andie’s (Molly Ringwald) house and follows her to Iona’s (Annie Potts) apartment in Chinatown.
“Knowing” references such as these are also in keeping with the Ryan Murphy style, but something about the way West employs it doesn’t feel quite as self-congratulatory (perhaps a euphemism for masturbatory). Case in point, the Judy Garland allusions not just in the coroner (Toby Huss) “quipping” to Detective Torres (Bobby Cannavale) that “two homos cruising each other near Judy Garland’s grave” found the latest pair of bodies with pentagrams engraved on them (sometimes a signature of Ramirez), but also in the costuming Maxine wears at the end of the movie as her character in The Puritan II. Although Elizabeth gushes that she looks like a “Hitchcock blonde,” her dress is decidedly Dorothy Gale-coded. She’s finally made it to Oz and she “never wants it to end.” Not like movies themselves do.
And even if “the wizard” might turn out to be disappointing, Maxine can handle the skin-deep nature of things that only seem real in Hollywood. Like the Psycho house itself, a set she runs to when trying to escape the clutches of the persistent Labat. When she opens the front door to keep running, there is nothing actually there—nothing actually inside (save for her hallucination of the elderly version of Pearl). All there really is to it is the façade. This also being something Elizabeth comments on to Maxine when taking her for a little ride/pep talk in one of those studio golf carts for the first time: how Hollywood can make something appear so real that the illusion is almost the exact same as the real thing. Begging the question: who cares what’s real, anyway? Not when it’s about how the images and illusions make a person feel.
At the beginning of X, Wayne said to everyone in the car, “No ma’am, we don’t need Hollywood. These types of pictures turn regular folks into stars. We’re gonna do it all ourselves.” To a certain extent, that’s what Maxine has been doing all along—everything herself, whatever it takes. But in the end, she still needs the approval of the Hollywood Establishment in order for her hard work to be recognized in a mainstream setting. Through all The Neon Demon-esque debauchery/macabre competition, and the onslaught of faux moral outrage, she proves what Pearl never could: “I’m a star!” (Or, as Maxine says in the mirror, “You’re a fuckin’ movie star!”) And, as an added cherry on top, she even gets to see Lily “Emily in Paris” Collin’s chopped-up body roll down a staircase.
So, to quote the Maxine of X after she finally offs Pearl and then snorts some cocaine in celebration: “Praise the fuckin’ Lord.” Jesus was on her side rather than that of the moralists, after all. And yes, Maxine Minx definitely needs to play Mary Magdalene at some point in her career. No, make it the dual role of Mary Magdalene and the Virgin Mary à la Goth playing Maxine and Pearl.
