Spoiler alert! We discuss major plot points and the ending of “MaXXXine” (in theaters now), so be warned if you haven’t seen the film yet.
Believe it or not, the meta-slasher film “MaXXXine” set in the 80s has a happy ending And shows the heroine’s severed head in the final moments.
Written and directed by Ti West, the horror film put the finishing touches on a trilogy that began with “X,” which centered on star-chasing amateur porn actress Maxine Minx (Mia Goth) surviving a massacre at the hands of jealous elders in 1979. Then came the detour to 1918 with the period prequel “Pearl,” which focused on the eponymous “X” villain (also played by Goth), her youthful dreams of making it in the movie business, and her penchant for axe-wielding violence.
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“MaXXXine” catches up with Maxine in 1985, with her big Hollywood break on the horizon when the popular adult film star survives the mysterious man who’s been killing her friends and targeting her in return. But with the help of her agent (Giancarlo Esposito), she fights back, brutally taking out a villainous private eye (Kevin Bacon) via a junkyard smash-up, exposing the real villain and realizing her dream of movie stardom in the horror film “The Puritan II.”
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West and Goth discuss the ending of “MaXXXine,” that nerve-wracking final shot, and whether Maxine’s story is really over.
What happens at the end of ‘MaXXXine’?
Maxine ventures into the Hollywood Hills to find out who her antagonist is, who knows about the “Texas Porn Star Massacre” she witnessed and is threatening her life and career. The perpetrator? Her televangelist father! It’s teased at the end of “X” that powerful preacher Ernest Miller (Simon Prast) is her estranged father, but he shows up in “MaXXXine” with a whole group of followers who have gone to extreme lengths to bring his daughter back into the fold. Suffice it to say, she fails and ends up blowing her father’s head off in an extremely gory manner.
The original incarnation of “MaXXXine” involved Maxine once again being “pursued” by Pearl (who menaced the heroine in “X” before Maxine crushed her head under a tire during her escape). The plan was to do some “in-Pearl body horror stuff,” West says, but after “messing around with that for a couple of weeks,” the director decided to scrap the supernatural elements. “It just felt like going back wasn’t what these movies were about (and) it just wasn’t as compelling to tie her to the past in that way.”
Does ‘MaXXXine’ have a post-credits scene?
No, but the final sequence is significant in West’s overall mythology. There’s a scene being filmed in “Puritan II” where Maxine’s character’s decapitated head — the actress had a life cast made earlier in the film — is shown propped up on a bed, and the camera stays on the frame until it leaves the room and zooms out for a wider view of L.A.
West says it’s “partly a nod” to the ending of “Pearl,” where Goth holds her unforgettably spine-chilling grin throughout the credits. The “MaXXXine” moment was an image “that I always had in my head as someone who had made it in Hollywood. That was such a goal for her, to be a star,” the director explains.
“There’s something about the end of ‘Pearl,’ about her smile and her attempt to keep smiling, that’s representative of the film as a whole. And there’s also something about this severed head on the bed that’s being photographed that’s representative of the absurdity of the whole thing.”
For the record, posing for a live cast was harder than marathoning that infamous “Pearl” smile, Goth reports. “When you’re in a scene like that and it feels like it’s going well, it’s euphoric. You’re kind of like riding a magic carpet.”
Is Maxine Minx (Mia Goth) returning for a new film?
She survived the worst porn shoot ever in the 70s and finally became legal in the 80s. Maybe the next film will be Maxine going for an Oscar in the 90s?
“I just don’t know where else it can go at this point,” Goth says. “It’s incredible that we were able to do this (the trilogy). Maybe it’s best to leave it there and just leave people wanting more.”
West reveals that he does have “a few ideas in mind,” but for now “I need to let the dust settle. The door is always open to keep this universe alive. I just need a really good reason to do it.”
After being “partners in crime” with Goth on these films since “X” was announced in 2020, “it’s going to be really weird to wake up in about two weeks and not have to call her and say, ‘OK, what time are you coming to set tomorrow?’”