Movie · 2024 · Horror, Thriller · 1h 43m · R · English
Curator score: 2.8/10 (988.7K ratings)
Hollywood is a killer.
Overview
In 1980s Hollywood, adult film star and aspiring actress Maxine Minx finally gets her big break. But as a mysterious killer stalks the starlets of Hollywood, a trail of blood threatens to reveal her sinister past.
Ratings
Curator score: 2.8/10
IMDb: 6.2/10
Letterboxd: 3.08/5
Rotten Tomatoes: 73%
Metacritic: 64
TMDB: 6.3/10
Director
Ti West
Production
A24, Motel Mojave, Access Entertainment
Cast
Mia Goth, Elizabeth Debicki, Moses Sumney, Michelle Monaghan, Bobby Cannavale, Halsey, Lily Collins, Giancarlo Esposito, Kevin Bacon, Charley Rowan McCain, Simon Prast, Deborah Geffner, Daniel Lench, Chloe Farnworth, Brad Swanick, Uli Latukefu, Susan Pingleton, Zachary Mooren, Ned Vaughn, Marcus LaVoi
Curator Review
Verdict
A slick, pulpy 1980s Hollywood slasher with strong atmosphere, a magnetic lead performance, and plenty of grime-soaked style, but it’s also uneven and increasingly chaotic as it goes. If you’re here for neon noir energy, practical gore, and a trashy showbiz nightmare, it delivers; if you want a tightly built thriller or a satisfying payoff, it may frustrate you.
Best for
fans of stylized horror with a retro Hollywood setting
viewers who like campy, self-aware genre mashups
people drawn to star-driven performances and practical effects
audiences interested in 1980s sleaze, fame, and serial-killer paranoia
Skip if
you want a coherent mystery with a clean third act
you dislike exaggerated camp or tonal whiplash
you prefer restrained horror over flashy gore and pulp
you’re not interested in sex-work-adjacent showbiz satire
Overview
MaXXXine is at its best when it leans into sleazy, sun-bleached 1980s Los Angeles: the neon, the video-store grime, the panic around fame, and the sense that every sidewalk is a trap. Ti West builds a vivid world of ambition and exploitation, and Mia Goth gives the film its pulse, carrying Maxine as both survivor and self-invented icon.
Worth noting
The movie also has a real appetite for pulp. It wants to be a slasher, a Hollywood nightmare, a satire of image-making, and a serial-killer thriller all at once. That ambition gives it energy, but it also makes the film feel scattered, especially once the plot starts sprinting toward a more cartoonish finale.
Bottom line
What lingers is the mood: nasty, glossy, and oddly mournful about the cost of becoming a star. Even when the storytelling slips, the movie keeps finding new ways to be lurid and entertaining. It’s a stylish hangout in a corrupted dream factory, just not a fully satisfying one.
Top Letterboxd reviews
Kit Lazer (2.5★) · 33441 likes
I will not accept a third act I do not deserve.
jeaba (3.5★) · 15866 likes
as someone who loves those hydraulic press videos on tiktok, i was a HUGE fan of that one scene.
YogiLovesFilm (4.5★) · 15554 likes
A Star is Porn
aaron (5★) · 8540 likes
i just think that maxine minx cutting a fat line of coke with her sag card is the absolute pinnacle of cinema
Sydney🚀 (2★) · 8328 likes
It’s not every day you see a film shoot itself in the foot to this degree, where every decision past a certain point is a total head scratcher. The 80s aesthetic and women being targeted by a (real life) serial killer coming off the golden age of porn were right there on a silver platter, but it’s all destroyed in service of a scatterbrained and cartoonish third act that can’t be saved by Mia Goth’s star power or the fun… more It’s not every day you see a film shoot itself in the foot to this degree, where every decision past a certain point is a total head scratcher. The 80s aesthetic and women being targeted by a (real life) serial killer coming off the golden age of porn were right there on a silver platter, but it’s all destroyed in service of a scatterbrained and cartoonish third act that can’t be saved by Mia Goth’s star power or the fun… more