Warning: This article contains spoilers for MaXXXine (2024).
The in-universe movie The Puritan II helps shape the setting of MaXXXine by highlighting a divisive horror movie era in Hollywood. MaXXXine concludes A24 and Ti West’s horror movie trilogy, following Maxine Minx as she tries to break into mainstream show business. After many auditions, Maxine finally gets cast in The Puritan II, but her past threatens to derail her career when murders start happening all around her. When watching MaXXXine, it’s easy to mistake The Puritan II for a real horror movie.
After all, MaXXXine includes references to true crimes that took place in Hollywood, rather than inventing serial killers and crimes. Additionally, Maxine asks Leon about actors who got their start in horror, and he lists Jamie Lee Curtis, Brook Shields, and John Travolta. These famous actors started out in Halloween; Alice, Sweet Alice; and The Devil’s Rain – respectively. With such a realistic foundation for the movie, it’s surprising that The Puritan II is entirely fictional. However, the film does draw inspiration from a real era of horror movies.
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MaXXXine’s The Puritan II Takes Inspiration From Classic Religious Horror Movies
The Puritan II Uses Common Themes And Visuals From Supernatural Horror Movies
The best-known ’80s horror subgenre is slasher movies, but the ’70s and ’80s also saw a rise in supernatural religious horror movies. Iconic horror movies The Omen, The Exorcist, Night of the Demons, and Deadly Blessing all came out during this period. Films about children being possessed by the devil became extremely popular with horror movie lovers.
The Puritan II in MaXXXine seems to pull inspiration from these movies in the visual style, basic concept, and script. The main character appears to be a young woman with demonic behaviors. The Puritan II’s premise is more akin to the 2015 movie The Witch starring Anya Taylor Joy because the fictional and real movies are both period pieces. However, the inclusion of horror elements from the ’80s makes The Puritan II seem like a movie that could have come from that era.
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The Protests Against The Puritan II Draw From Actual History
Protests Against Horror Movies Occurred In the ’80s
In MaXXXine, protesters are shown objecting to pornography, horror movies, and specifically The Puritan II. This is narratively significant because Maxine Minx is an actor from the pornography industry trying to gain mainstream fame. However, the protests weren’t just created out of nowhere. Because of increased serial killer coverage and satanic panic, a moral outrage developed towards anything perceived as satanic, including rock n’ roll, TV shows, Dungeons and Dragons, and horror movies.
Horror specifically was targeted, with religious groups protesting, critics tearing them apart, and the UK threatening to charge people with breaking obscenity laws for selling horror movie VHSes. Specific examples of ’80s movies getting protested include The Evil Dead and Silent Night, Deadly Night. By tying these real-life elements into MaXXXine, Ti West created a more realistic horror story that felt gritty and grounded.
