MaXXXine, the final film in Ti West’s bloody-brilliant X trilogy, has a lot riding on it. X was not only a smash success that made its $1 million budget back 15 times over, but it also drew a cult following of devoted fans, eager to watch the trilogy’s shining star Mia Goth slash, smash, and gnash her way through the franchise. Its prequel, Pearl—shot immediately after X in New Zealand during COVID-19 lockdowns, and kept secret until the first film’s release—made an even bigger splash. A smaller cast and more focused story made Goth that film’s undeniable star, and made Pearl the rare horror villain who was as iconic as she was sympathetic.

The success of the X trilogy’s first two installments has increased the weight of expectation on MaXXXine (which opens in theaters July 5), particularly since third films in a series don’t always land well. Happily, any foreboding inspired by the likes of Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines or Spider-Man 3 quickly dissipates once West and Goth settle back into their director-muse relationship.

A scuzzy tribute to grainy ’70s porno and slashers, X introduced us to Goth’s Maxine Minx, an aspiring superstar trying to use the burgeoning adult home video industry to launch her career, only to have her dreams destroyed by a murderous granny. With Pearl, West thrust audiences back into the Technicolor films of the 1930s to show us Grandma Pearl’s harrowing origins. And in MaXXXine, West finishes his story by catching up with Maxine six years after the events of X, which ended with its final girl peeling out from a farmhouse full of dead bodies straight toward Hollywood’s glowing limelight.

Like the previous two installments, MaXXXine is both a love letter to and a eulogy for a bygone era of cinema. This time around, West pays homage to the neon-soaked horror-thrillers of his youth. Goth is sensational once again, but more admirable are the ways that West and she rise to the challenge of the movie itself: MaXXXine is a much larger production than X or Pearl, and that broader scale occasionally........

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