This story contains moderate spoilers for MaXXXine. In MaXXXine, even as the titular aspiring actress played by Mia Goth finds herself and everyone around her being hunted by a killer, she refuses to be a victim. She’s the star of her own cinematic universe, and as she frequently repeats in the film, “I will not accept a life I do not deserve,” you can expect an untimely, gruesome death is not a part of her final act.
Rather, it’s clear that Maxine Minx will go to extreme lengths of self-preservation while investigating the murderer on her trail so she can step into the spotlight as she sees fit. In doing so, the new A24 horror film—Goth’s and writer/director Ti West third and final entry in their collaborative X trilogy—takes heavy inspiration from the Italian subgenre Giallo. (It marks the third time in the series that West has paid homage to a bygone era of filmmaking; 2022’s X took direct influence from classic horror slashers and Pearl was a nightmarish take on Technicolor.) But here, MaXXXine flips the script on Giallo.
