With the release of their recent horror trilogy, director Ti West and star Mia Goth have struck a chord with the horror community and film going audiences in general. What started out as a simple throwback slasher quickly became a sprawling decades long, tale of fame, desire, and psychopathy. Focusing on the characters of Maxine Minx and Pearl (both played by Goth), West is able to take his love and knowledge of genre filmmaking and use it in an exploration of sensuality and repression. From the gritty reality of the 1970s to the turpentine tinged 1910s and up to the repulsive glitz of 1980s Hollywood, both West and Goth are able to bring truth and flair to these lavish genre experiments.
Ti West has long worked as an imitation artist. He loving wears his influences throughout his filmography, from low budget cult films of the 1970s in House of the Devil to the neo-spaghetti Westerns of In a Valley of Violence. His work often apes the styles of these influences, but with his X trilogy he rises above simple pastiche by linking together various themes. The sexual overtones of the trilogy are highly effective, using modern privileges to comment on eras of the past that were less free in their abilities of full expression. The role of stardom is the other theme that’s thread throughout the trilogy, one that comments on modern ideas of fame and shamefulness, a dissection of a time people are willing to go to any length for the spotlight. Through the lens of modernity West looks into these decades and paints these period pieces, while still allowing lavish send-ups to genre particulars.
Pastiche as filmmaking is rarely as blatant and active as West’s films, but at times far more distracting than in his usage. The horror genre in particular tends to self-cannibalize often, with send ups and references to famous actors, directors, films, scenes, and shots plaguing the genre for decades. And while these references fall short of pastiche, the knowing, winking nature of them often pulls the knowing viewers out of the film, even for a second. West’s overtness in his influence permeates throughout the work, allowing the audience to settle into the form of the films and never pulling them out after that. Instead of having moments that are anachronistic or obvious, the entire films feel natural as seen through the context of pastiche.
This is how X rises above being a simple Texas Chainsaw Massacre rip-off. While containing references and a general sense of grime and decay that Tobe Hooper’s masterful 1974 film induces, it’s this careful design that places us in the reference immediately and allows the film to unfold outside of it’s influence. The use of characters and sex staunchly contrasts with TCM’s more conservative view. TCM is entirely mood and implication, the film actually containing a surprising lack of gore. It’s through editing that Hooper creates the implication of violence, allowing the audience to form images that never actually existed. X is much more vulgar and embracing of the violence, giving the decaying world of 70s Texas a blood-soaked tinge.
The violence between the two is no less visceral because of the overtness of West’s film, which proves the power of the 1974 film. Despite lacking gore there is a much more entrenched sense of danger in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Whether it’s the use of cheap, gritty film stock, or Hooper’s sense in art and character direction, but the film still feels unexpected fifty years later. While X is not hurt by this, due to it living within the realm of reference, there are certain expectations that the film is held to and meets. The violence feels much more modern in it’s reliance of gore and irony. The film contains many allusions to our characters demises before the befall them, taking the horror and giving them quiet comedic beats. This transformation of horror into something both bloodier and lighter is a counterpoint of the utter despair throughout The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, a modern inevitability as audiences grow more accustomed to blood and guts. Those raised on the violence of TCM need either a new avenue to shock or a twist of the formula to bring X to a level worth discussing with Texas Chainsaw.
The irony of X is that it’s the sexuality of our characters that is much more abrasive than their brutal deaths. The porn of the film is another reference point for West, as smut of the 1970s does contain an air of artistic integrity and historical reclamation that modern adult productions will likely not see. With films such as Deep Throat and Debbie Does Dallas seeing legitimate mainstream success in that decade, X also acts as a nostalgic look to a time when sex and pornography was seedy but had a charm of integrity (even if that charm was only a facade). With the advent of video and home recording in the 1980s, pornography once again became an underground activity, the conservatism of 1980s Reganism leading to a North American public that was more frightening of an erect penis than they were of a vivisection. So while the intensity of the violence is toned down in X compared to the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, it is in the cavalier portrayal of sexuality that the film truly shocks when looked at beside it’s predecessor.
X both plays into tropes associated with the world of pornography and subverts them, and the themes of youth and sexuality are one of the leading motivations for the elderly killers. We can see the corrupting influences of pornography in the portrayal of Lorraine Day (Jenna Ortega), who eventually asks to perform in the film (much to the dismay of her boyfriend and the cameraman of the film). Maxine’s relationship with Wayne Gilroy (Martin Henderson) could also be interpreted as predatory, as she has developed an addiction to cocaine and Wayne has left his wife for Maxine, a girl half his age. But West is uninterested in moralization, portraying being in pornography as any other job, portraying sex as a basic need and not a shameful, unspoken of act. While Lorraine and Maxine could be seen as young women being taken advantage of, they are both active in making their choices, and it’s under their will that the enter into the business. Bobby-Lynne Parker (Brittany Snow) is portrayed as an intelligent and talented woman who has chosen sex work out of joy as much out of financial need. It’s these dimensions of sexual liberation that were practically unseen in the films of the 1970s, and provide a modern lens to the 70s steeped violence.
Possibly the most shocking aspect of X in both a modern and historical context is the overt sexuality of our elderly villain Pearl. In this first film Pearl is portrayed as a woman desperate to recapture her youth, seeing the women of the porn as vivacious reminders of the body and life she once had. She is rebuked by her husband Howard, but only because his heart can no longer handle the pressures of sex, leaving them both frustrated. As we see the eventually prequel, there is a link between sexuality and violence with Pearl, and the reason she turns violent is because RJ (Owen Campbell) is unable to see her as a sexual being. She develops an obsession with Maxine, as her sexual liberation is a freedom that Pearl herself never got to fully experience, thus her murderous tendencies. With Mia Goth playing both roles, the contrast between youth and liberation and age and abandonment is made abundantly clear. Pearl is the old guard, the way of the past, containing all the complexities and desires of the modern youth, but having been forced to repress those urges until the express themselves in visceral violence.
West’s commentary on the repressive nature of the past and the rose-tinted glasses for which many modern interpretations seem to approach certain eras is highlighted in the second film in the trilogy, Pearl. Taking place in 1918, the Spanish Flu is ravaging the world and World War is still only known as The Great War, we follow Pearl as a young girl (once again portrayed by Goth) as she dreams of life as a star on the silver screen, all while her overbearing mother and invalid father keep her on the family farm. Taking heavy inspiration from The Wizard of Oz and the melodrama epics of Douglas Sirk, the film plays out as a technicolor nightmare. Pearl has abundant moments of joy throughout the film, only for those moments to quickly curdle into a demented and blood-soaked reality. The film shows both the dark reality of the time, while showing that desperation and fame chasing is far from a modern problem.
The depravity of Pearl is never clearly explained in the film, instead simply being an aspect of her sick mind. Her inability to cope with the pains of the world leads her to lash out violently, first at animals, than in small acts of cruelty against her father, until she falls into full blown homicidal mania. The fantasy world that she believes she exists in is the one that West shows us, the vibrant colours and exuberant, sweeping camera movements taken directly from the films Pearl envisions herself in. When the fantasy she dreams of meets the reality of her po-dunk, low class existence, her facade of civility cracks, little be little, until it shatters completely. Pearl wants to be Dorothy in the land of Oz, but will only ever be the little girl stuck on the family farm. She will never go somewhere over the rainbow, and that embitters her to everyone and everything.
Pearl also is incapable of seeing the limitations to her fantasies, and when faced with those limitations she lashes out. This is seen with her relationship with the Projectionist (David Corenswet). The Projectionist is portrayed as a wandering man, one similar to Wayne in X, a man willing to seduce young women and blow out of town when the situation no longer suits his needs. His seduction of Pearl plays on her desperation for escape, as he represents not only a world outside of her family farm, but a world in the movie pictures. While his connection is non-existent to Hollywood, he is the representative of a corrupting force, a fantasy that will always be too good to be true. He introduces Pearl to the early pornographic film (or “stag” film) A Free Ride, which combined Pearl’s maniacal lust with her love of film. After they sleep together, the fantasy of what he represents quickly faded away, while the innocent and naive girl The Projectionist thought he had tricked is replaced by a off-putting and frightening woman. The Projectionists failure to live up to her fantasy leads to his demise.
Each of the deaths in Pearl represent her own failure to live up to her fantasies. She kills her parents because they represent failure, her mother an overbearing witch who will never see Pearl’s potential, her father a useless invalid incapable of bathing or feeding himself. They die in order for her to pursue stardom. The Projectionist dies after her flights of fanciful love and getaways fall short of what he was willing to provide. He is a failure of escape. Mitsy is killed after she reveals that she was chosen for the dance audition over Pearl, achieving the dreams she had so desperately wanted. Mitsy was the “all-American” girl that so easily existed in the world, and represented everything Pearl wasn’t. In the final moments of the film, we are once again reminded of Texas Chainsaw Massacre as Pearl sets up a disturbing tableau of a dinner scene, her burnt mother and decaying father sitting silently over a maggot filled pig potluck. Howard returns home to find this demented display and Pearl playing the role of loving, adoring housewife, having abandoned her dreams of stardom for another dream. Pearl is to be the perfect homemaker, but only in the way Pearl’s mind can comprehend.
West’s use of the long take is fundamentally to the insanity of Pearl the character and the waking nightmare of Pearl the film. The two long takes occur when Pearl is at her most vulnerable, allowing her mask of humanity fall to reveal the psychopathy that lives underneath, and both occur only with her husband Howard (or a stand-in). Given we know he stays with Pearl for the rest of their lives, the connection between Howard and Pearl is deep and loving, even if we never see how he deals with her homicidal tendencies. But seeing her confess her crimes and psychopathy to Mitsy (who was acting as Howard in order for Pearl to release some tension), we see that Pearl trusts him completely, that she can be fully herself with him. West uses the second long take over the credits, upon Howard’s return. Pearl, desperately playing the perfect housewife, smiles painfully and dementedly for the entire credits, eyes watering and mouth twitching, all while Howard silent watches. We see her desperation to be what Howard needs now, and that what he will eventually except is the combination of all-American apple pie country bumpkin and pure mania that Pearl is.
While Pearl looked over one hundred years into a past, Maxxxine focused on the opulence and excess that was 1980s Hollywood. Focusing on Maxine Minx, having escaped the massacre of the farm in X, now a successful porn star and stripper in Los Angeles. Just as she is about to make the jump from adult to legitimate film work, her past bubbles up and her friends start getting slaughtered. It’s now up to her to discover who from her past is threatening her future, and what she’s willing to do to protect her possible stardom. For Maxxxine, West delved into influences ranging from straight-to-video schlock which dominated the home markets in the 80s, to Italian Giallo film, soaking the scenes in blood and neon, and finally the satanic panic which gripped conservative America throughout the decade.
The film once again explores sexuality and pornography, this time through the lens of corporate 80s America. Sex is completely commodified in this film, Maxine only using her sensuality and body as currency. While this was happening in X, there was still legitimate emotional connections between the characters. Wayne and Maxine cared for each other, and Bobby-Lynne and Jackson (Scott Mescudi) were portrayed as much more than just coworkers in sex work. But come her time in Hollywood, Maxine has distanced herself completely from romance or romantic relationships, instead seeing sex as simply a stepping stone to the next position in life. Her closest friendship with her neighbor Leon (Moses Sumney) is due to him being gay, thus not wanting her for her body. Sex has fully become a tool for Maxine.
This plays into the corruption of pornography and Hollywood that is central to the killer’s motives in Maxxxine. The killer is revealed to a Christian cult lead by Maxine’s father (a preacher who has been seen sermonizing on television throughout this film and X). Believing that Maxine and her Hollywood friends have been corrupted and taken over by Satanic demons, the cult hopes that by killing the harlots that Satan’s grip on the youth (and on Maxine) will be loosened. But we can see this is a false belief, as it’s heavily implied that Maxine’s father Ernest Miller (Simon Prast) doesn’t believe in the satanic origins of Maxine’s sins. He is a false prophet, leading blind sheep who would believe anything he says. When Maxine is caught by the cult near the end of the film, we can see him leading her through the proper things to say in order to be saved. He is an abuser, another man wishing to control Maxine’s body, this time to withhold sex from her instead of drawing it out of her. He believes that Maxine has been corrupted because of how she choses to use her body, but he is wanting to use her body just as much.
Maxine’s pursuit of stardom is another reoccurring theme from the previous two films, this one playing more within the context of modern starlets. The film that Maxine is hoping to be her big break is a sequel to a low budget horror film, the type of film that may draw a cult following but certainly will never be the type of mainstream success that Maxine is dreaming of. While we don’t see how it plays out in the film, as it ends with production beginning, it’s easy to place Maxine in the same position as Pearl found herself in in Pearl. In that film, we see her have a full blown fantasy as she dances on stage, being joined by other dancers and a full production number. In Maxxxine, we see a similar fantasy right before Maxine kills her father, one in which Maxine, having survived her traumatic night in the Hollywood hills, is being sought after by media and Hollywood, the starlet she has always dreamed herself to be. Whether her fantasy is to be realized her she, like Pearl, will ultimately be rejected is unknown, but the parallels lean towards her eventual downfall.
The Giallo elements of the film are mostly through aesthetic choices in the filmmaking,. and much less of an influence on the overall story or thematic elements. Giallo is mostly defined by it’s use of suspense and psychological horror elements, while including lavish and brash colour design. An emphasis on close-up gore and the fears of the characters are common within Giallo cinema. We can see this influence especially in the mask making scene, in which Maxine is entrapped in a plastic goop and left alone for her face mold to set. Trapped in the darkness, Maxine’s mind returns to the terrors of the Texas massacre, and combined with the new murders happening in her life, cause a panic attack. While there was no obvious threat, the pressures of her life birthed fear. This comments on how fear is not always a tangible threat, and that we are unable to control every aspect of our lives. Maxine has worked incredibly hard to get where she is, but until she puts her past fully behind her she will be unable to move forward. She will fail.
Much like the corrupted Wizard of Oz influence on Pearl, we see a bizzarro version of Chinatown protagonist J.J. Gittes in the seedy private eye John Labat (Kevin Bacon). Styled very similar to Gittes (and later sporting his infamous nose bandage due to an attack from Maxine), Labat is pure capitalism bore down into one person. He is willing to do anything and everything to get has payday, including helping a serial killer as long as he comes out on top. Labat is what real corruption looks like. Unlike the sex workers in the film, who are scapegoated as the evil by the evil cult, it’s their own cohort who is willing to shed all traces of humanity in order to get his prey. The reason for Labat to be a corruption of Gittes is that, in the original Chinatown, while Gittes is out for himself, he’s still willing to at least acknowledge when wrong things are happening, and is willing to fight for what is right. Labat knows when he is working for evil people, but doesn’t care, doesn’t even question the reasons, for captalism does not wish to question why, it only looks to profit as much as possible. Labat is a force of pure greed, much like the opulent 1980s in general. He is a man of the era.
“I will not accept a life I do not deserve.” This is the mantra, said be Maxine in both her films and felt in the bones of Pearl in hers, that is the main takeaway from this horror trilogy. West shows us these women, in ways broken and disturbed and taken advantage of, and tells us that they deserve better. While one seeks out vengeance on a world that denied her better life, the other goes to any and all means to achieve the life she knows she deserves. The films are about taking what you want out of this world, and never settling for anything less, for that road only leads to regret and lonliness. The path to a life deserved is never an easy one, but it’s one well worth pursuing.