The next chapter in Ti West’s X trilogy, MaXXXine will transport fans to yet another decade, the ‘80s. But it’s not just all spandex and big hair in the threequel, as the director has taken influence straight from some of the era’s most risque and action-packed movies.
“It’s a very rich movie,” West tells Total Film in our new issue out on Thursday May 23, which features Twisters on the cover. The director goes on to explain how MaXXXine boasts everything from “a Terminator-like aesthetic to a Paul Schrader Hardcore thing to Vice Squad to Giallo,” in terms of influence.
For those not familiar with ’80s cinema, Hardcore is a racy neo-noir thriller following a father desperately searching for his daughter in the Californian porn industry, whilst crime drama Vice Squad follows a prostitute forced to work undercover for the police. On the other hand, Giallo is an Italian movie genre that explores murder, sexual exploitation, and sometimes supernatural elements. These all seem perfectly on brand for the upcoming movie which follows Mia Goth’s ex-adult film star Maxine Minx as she lands in Hollywood in 1985, where she finally gets her big break.
The comparison to 1984 action movie The Terminator, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger as a cyborg assassin from the future, is meanwhile more perplexing. However, West is no stranger to taking influence from movies of different eras and often putting a bloody and brutal spin on them, just as he did with the first two movies in the X trilogy. Set in 1979, X takes influence from ’70s slashers such as The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and Pearl, which is set in 1918, acts as a twisted The Wizard of Oz tale.
So, how will MaXXXine put a spin on the ‘80s aesthetic we all know and love? West explains later in the interview: “It’s poppy, but still grounded in more of a grittier ’80s than a shopping-mall ’80s. You’re seeing the glamorous side of the movie business and the seedy side of Hollywood.”
MaXXXine is released on July 5. And you can read more about it and a whole lot else besides in the new issue of Total Film when it hits shelves and digital newsstands on Thursday, May 23.
Check out the covers below:
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