Warning: This article contains SPOILERS for MaXXXine (2024)

While MaXXXine includes a lot of nods to its predecessors X and Pearl, director Ti West’s ‘80s-set slasher also features a plethora of references to famous movies, people, and pieces of Hollywood and horror history. Pearl’s iconic ending was always going to be a tough act to follow, but Ti West’s follow-up to 2022’s psychological horror is a fitting end to the trilogy that began with 2022’s X. While X was a ‘70s-set homage to The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and Pearl was a Technicolor nightmare that subverted the Golden Age of Hollywood, MaXXXine is firmly an ‘80s slasher.

Everything from MaXXXine’s neon-drenched visuals to its synth-pop soundtrack screams the 1980s. MaXXXine’s clever twist ending even incorporates a nod to the decade’s infamous Satanic panic, and frequent nods to the Night Stalker’s crime spree definitively plant the movie in 1985. However, this setting isn’t just an excuse for some aesthetic nostalgia. MaXXXine’s plot takes the ingredients of ‘80s slasher movies, adds in references from throughout Hollywood’s long history, and uses the resulting stew to comment on pop culture, the ethics of entertainment, and the dark side of the movie industry. This is underlined by MaXXXine’s many easter eggs.

11

Theda Bara’s Career

Maxine Walks On Theda Bara’s Walk of Fame Star

One of MaXXXine’s earliest nods to Hollywood history comes when the titular heroine walks over actor Theda Bara’s star on the Walk of Fame. Bara was a silent film star who gained a reputation as one of Hollywood’s first “Vamps.” Bara played dark, alluring sex symbols in the 1910s and 1920s, and her 1917 movie Cleopatra plays on a marquee in one of Pearl’s many Easter eggs. Bara’s status as a screen legend whose characters used their sexual prowess to dominate men and gain power is ironically mirrored in both Maxine and Pearl’s storylines in X And Pearl.

To make the connection between the actor and Goth’s two characters clearer, Pearl and X both referenced Theda Bara before MaXXXine. Pearl’s pet alligator, who ate Mitsy’s body in Pearl and killed Bobby-Lynn in X, was named Theda after the legendary Silent Era actor. Since there was no love lost between X’s bitter elderly version of Pearl and its ambitious heroine Maxine, it makes sense that Maxine stomps out a cigarette on Bara’s Walk of Fame star. This throwaway gesture builds on the references to the actor in both X and Pearl as the following scene reveals Maxine’s dark side.

10

Buster Keaton

Maxine’s Would-Be Assailant Is Dressed As Buster Keaton

Shortly after stamping out her cigarette, Maxine wanders down a dark alley alone. She is soon pursued by a knife-wielding creep dressed as the Silent Era star Buster Keaton. A legendary actor and stuntman best known for The General and Sherlock Jr., Keaton is one of the most enduringly iconic actors from the Silent Era. Keaton also directed many of his most notable movies, shaping the landscape of film comedy in its early years. The mugger’s costume is turned into an appropriately funny visual pun when Maxine pulls out a gun and shouts “Hold it right there, Buster.”

The sequence that follows is one of MaXXXine’s most brutal moments as Maxine forces her would-be assailant to strip nude, makes him suck on a gun barrel, and then graphically crushes his privates. There is an obvious pun on the name “Buster” here, but the sequence more broadly highlights MaXXXine’s investment in borrowing from various ages of film history. Buster’s gruesome fate is a grimly funny instance of Maxine turning the tables and, like Keaton’s best movies, offers audience members truly jaw-dropping visuals that they are unlikely to forget anytime soon.

9

The Bird With the Crystal Plumage

MaXXXine’s Gloved Killer Resembles Argento’s Giallo Villain

One of the most notable recurring visual motifs in MaXXXine is the killer’s distinct attire. The unseen villain wears a trench coat and a pair of long black leather gloves that effectively hide their identity until the finale’s big reveal. In terms of plot, MaXXXine implies the Night Stalker, a real-life serial killer, might be its villain before the twist. However, in visual terms, the killer’s outfit is an overt reference to Giallo movies and, more specifically, director Dario Argento’s The Bird With the Crystal Plumage. This influential proto-slasher features a killer who dresses almost identically.

8

Psycho

Maxine Visits The Bates Motel Set

While there is a deluge of movie references featured throughout MaXXXine, only a few of them are acknowledged by the characters themselves in-universe. One such moment is Maxine’s visit to the set of Psycho. The Puritan II’s director takes Maxine to the set to reaffirm the importance of her artistic vision, but Maxine ends up distracted by a hallucination of X’s villain Pearl. This doubles as a nod to X’s horror movie reference, as Maxine’s first sight of Pearl resembles a shot of Psycho’s infamous “Mother” in the earlier slasher.

7

Killer Crocodile Movies

Leon’s Choice of Viewing Material References Both X And Pearl

While at work, Maxine’s doomed roommate, Leon, watches a killer crocodile movie. It’s not immediately clear what movie he is watching, although it could be 1979’s The Great Alligator River or 1976’s Eaten Alive. Although 1980’s Alligator would be more appropriate, that movie’s atypically urban setting is nowhere to be seen. Regardless, the sequence clearly resembles Bobby Lynn’s death in X. Since Theda the alligator also appears in Pearl, it is fair to say that this reference doubles up as a nod to both earlier movies in the trilogy.

6

The Texas Chain Saw Massacre

A Newspaper Headline Reports On The Texas ****star Massacre”

By including a brief clip that could be from The Texas Chain Saw Massacre director Tobe Hooper’s Eaten Alive, West subtly acknowledged X’s creative debt to the horror legend. MaXXXine then makes this debt much more blatant when a newspaper headline refers to X‘s killings as “The Texas ****star Massacre.” This highlights just how much the movie borrowed from The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, from its remote setting to its lone female survivor to the framing of its opening scene. The headline also doubles as a parody of the tasteless ways that the media scare-mongered in the ‘80s.

5

St. Elmo’s Fire

This Brat Pack Drama Is Frequently Referenced In MaXXXine

Although many of MaXXXine’s most prominent movie references focus on other horror movies, West’s slasher also features nods to more mainstream fare. For example, the 1985 Brat Pack drama St. Elmo’s Fire is referenced numerous times. This plants the movie’s timeline firmly in 1985 as Maxine walks under a marquee advertising the movie and later hears its hit theme song on the radio. Despite being released the same year as the high school drama The Breakfast Club, St. Elmo’s Fire saw the Brat Pack’s biggest stars play disillusioned graduates who were unhappy with the trajectory of their post-college lives.

4

The Crucible

The Puritan Looks Like A Grisly Adaptation Of This Iconic Story

Every movie in West’s X trilogy has something to say about Evangelical Christianity, the Protestant work ethic, and their relationship with the American entertainment industry. However, MaXXXine‘s fictional movie The Puritan II might be the director’s most obvious nod to this theme. This movie-within-a-movie stars Maxine as a stereotypical ‘50s housewife possessed by a vengeful witch. It seems to be influenced by The Stepford Wives, but the glimpse viewers get of its predecessor The Puritan is explicitly indebted to Arthur Miller’s legendary play The Crucible. This iconic play used the Salem Witch Trials to indict McCarthyism and was adapted to film in 1996.

3

Halloween, Prom Night, and Terror Train

Leon Mentions Jamie Lee Curtis’s Start In Horror Movies

When Maxine presses Leon to name three movie stars who got their start in the ignominious horror genre, he begins with Jamie Lee Curtis. Curtis starred in 1978’s Halloween, 1980’s Prom Night, and the same year’s Terror Train in rapid succession, and these three movies were the hits that made her a star before she transitioned into more high-profile roles. Ironically, while MaXXXine’s Night Stalker subplot gives the movie the atmosphere of a more conventional slasher, the noir-tinged final movie in West’s trilogy doesn’t owe as much to the structure of these classic slashers as X did.

2

Alice Sweet Alice

Maxine And Leon’s Conversation Has Some Dark Foreshadowing

Where X followed a classic slasher setup with its isolated location, small cast, and short time frame, MaXXXine owes more to the Giallo sub-genre. Its story blends elements of detective fiction with gory slasher horror like this sub-genre of Italian horror, which explains why Leon and Maxine also mention Brooke Shields in their conversation. Shields got her start in horror movies with an early role was in 1976’s rare American Giallo Alice Sweet Alice. Like MaXXXine, Alice Sweet Alice follows the story of a young girl who is framed for a series of brutal murders by a religious fanatic.

1

The Final Girls

MaXXXine’s Final Song Is Borrowed From 2015’s Another Meta-Slasher

MaXXXine’s nod to Alice Sweet Alice is a little on the nose given how much the two movies have in common in terms of plot. However, this isn’t the most striking similarity between MaXXXine and another, earlier slasher. In a bizarrely specific coincidence, MaXXXine is the second slasher movie about an aspiring actor to use the song “Bette Davis Eyes” in its moving ending. Admittedly, the underrated 2015 horror comedy The Final Girls is about a group of modern teens getting trapped inside the reality of a cheesy ‘80s slasher movie.

However, both MaXXXine and The Final Girls focus on young actors trying to make it in Hollywood despite their challenging personal lives. MaXXXine’s closing song is a perfect reminder to watch The Final Girls since it never got its flowers during its initial release. It’s a fresh, funny love letter to slashers and, after the critical success of the Fear Street trilogy, Freaky, Totally Killer, The Blackening, Bodies, Bodies, Bodies, the Happy Death Day movies, and West’s trilogy itself, The Final Girls deserves to be revisited. Thus, MaXXXine’s ending of Pearl and X’s trilogy is a great invitation to check out this gem.