Maxxxine

It’s hard to write about Maxxxine as a fan of X and Pearl, the proceeding films in Ti West’s X Trilogy, without sounding like I’m trying to convince myself that I liked it. That’s absolutely not the case. 

The thing is, Maxxxine needs to be looked at two ways: As the end of a trilogy, and as a standalone film in its own right. In this light, I found it much more successful as the latter. That’s not to say that Maxxxine doesn’t do its job as the final chapter in the trilogy: It continues the storyline, and it closes this chapter in the life of Maxine Minx; it also carries with it thematic and technical aspects from the other films: It’s as different from Pearl as that film was from X, it features a terrific performance from Mia Goth, it subtly (and sometimes less subtly) references elements from its predecessors, and it further explores the various interpretations of “X Factor”.

This time, West is evoking the vigilante films of the 1980s (with a little bit of Argento inspiration added), and my take away is that in this case, the X Factor is Maxine Minx's ability to survive. This is one of the things that I find most fascinating about this trilogy, this exploration of the X Factor. For the three characters that Goth has played in this series, and I would assume for most of the audience, the X Factor means star quality. West, however, knows that there are other aspects that make people stand out. For Pearl, it was her insanity, for Maxine, that survival instinct is her true outstanding quality. 

Taken on its own merits, Maxxxine is a highly entertaining flick that, for fans of X and Pearl, may not provide the emotional connection to character that the previous films hold, but is still a satisfying experience. Could it be that the films it evokes are just not as fertile an inspiration as those that inspired X and Pearl? I guess I need to go see it again. 

Godzilla Minus One

Uncertain whether or not Godzilla Minus One would make it to a screen in my province, my husband, two friends and I drove the 164+ kms to Moncton to see it on the big screen, and I’m glad we did.

I’ve made the trek to M-town to see a movie exactly four times now — to see The Devil’s Rejects, to see My Bloody Valentine 3-D (before we had 3-D capability here in Charlottetown), to see The Witch, and now for G-1.

I’ve been a lifelong Big G fan — He’s my favourite movie “creature”. I think that he was borne out of Japan’s need to work through the radioactive trauma of the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki is both heartbreaking and fascinating. My Chinese Zodiac sign is the dragon, and although Big G is a version of a dinosaur, he’ll alway be closely associated with dragon mythos in my mind. When I was diagnosed with blood cancer, I quickly settled on Godzilla as my symbol for my fight against this disease. He has been tattooed on my body — twice.

As a kid I “thrilled” (yes, that’s the right word) to Saturday matinee screenings of Godzilla flicks. I enjoy the campy later Showa Era Godzilla movies, taken on their own terms. I’ve enjoyed watching his evolution (and sometimes de-evolution) both as a character and in creature design.

All that to say that I probably react more intensely to a Godzilla flick than the causal viewer. With that in mind, Godzilla Minus One gave me all that I hope for in a Big G flick, and more — Characters to care about, honestly felt emotion — it’s possible that as a gay person, the concept of “found” or “chosen” family hits harder, awesome” (in the true and original sense of the word) mayhem, unobtrusive nods to the original 1954 Godzilla flick, suspense, social commentary, original themes neatly explored, a master class in how to use CGI, and this — the filmmakers were able to make Godzilla scary (no mean feat, as I’ve never found giant creatures a particularly upsetting notion).

Much, if not all of the film’s success can be attributed to Takashi Yamazaki who wrote, directed and provided the visual effects for G-1. Leave it to the Japanese to give us the best films about “their” creature. I think they understand Big G’s appeal, history and fluid meaning, and the weight (no pun intended) that he carries best.

As we were leaving the theatre, one of my travelling companions and I had a discussion about an occurrence that takes place towards the end of the film that he wasn’t sure how he felt about. I get where he’s coming from, but for me, there’s this — If you don’t live, you don’t know what you’re missing, no matter how improbable. In coming to terms with Japan’s notion of death as honour here, it makes perfect sense to me.

RELEASE ME 3: More Movies That Need a (Decent) Region 1/A Release

Begotten

(USA, 1989; Dir: E. Elias Merhige)

Blood and Roses

(France/Italy, 1960; Dir: Roger Vadim)

Blood Beach

(USA, 1981; Dir: Jeffrey Bloom)

Body Count

(Italy, 1986; Dir: Ruggero Deodato)

City of the Dead (aka Horror Hotel)

(UK, 1960; Dir: John Llewellyn Moxey)

VCI Entertainment have released a DVD/Blu-ray version, but it could sure use an upgrade. 

Dawn of the Mummy

(USA, 1981; Dir: Frank Agrama)

The Day of the Triffids

(UK, 1963; Dir: Steve Sekely/Freddie Francis)

Death Weekend (aka The House By the Lake)

(CAN, 1976; Dir: William Fruet)

The Devils (Uncut Version)

(UK, 1971; Dir: Ken Russell)

The Holy Grail of missing releases. 

The Early Films of John Waters:

Hag in a Black Leather Jacket/Roman Candles/

Eat Your Makeup/The Diane Linkletter Story

(USA, 1964-1970; Dir: John Waters)

The Ghoul

(UK, 1975; Dir: Freddie Francis)

The Giant Leeches (aka Attack of the Giant Leeches)

(USA, 1959; Dir: Bernard L. Kowalski)

The Glass Ceiling

(Spain, 1971: Dir: Eloy Germán de la Iglesia)

I Was a Teenage Frankenstein

(USA, 1957; Dir; Herbert L. Strock)

I Was a Teenage Werewolf

(USA, 1957; Dir: Gene Fowler Jr.)

Invasion of the Saucer Men

(USA, 1957; Dir: Edward L. Cahn)

The Keep

(UK/USA, 1983: Dir: Michael Mann)

Jonathan

(West Germany, 1970: Dir: Hans W. Geißendörfer)

London After Midnight

(USA, 1927: Dir: Tod Browning

The Holy Grail of lost movies.

Murder By Phone (aka Bells)

(USA/CAN, 1982; Dir: Michael Anderson)

The Name of the Game is Kill!

(USA, 1968: Dir: Gunnar Hellström)

VCI Entertainment have released a DVD version, but see above, City of the Dead.

The Psychopath

(USA, 1973; Dir: Larry Brown)

Rampage

(USA, 1987; Dir: William Friedkin)

The Shout

(UK, 1978; Dir: Jerzy Skolimowski)

Themroc

(France, 1973: Dir: Claude Faraldo)

Union City

(US, 1980; Dir: Marcus Reichert)

The White Reindeer

(Finland, 1952: Dir: Erik Blomberg)

More Favourite Horror Flicks, Alphabetically: Phantasm

Phantasm

Dir: Don Coscarelli. Cast: Michael Baldwin, Bill Thornbury, Reggie Bannister, Kathy Lester & Angus Scrimm. 1979

Phantasm, the little movie that could. This indie flick is such a shaggy dog that I think horror fans either find it too all over the place and goofy to be a cohesive horror classic, or embrace its everything-but-the-kitchen-sink storytelling. Clearly, I fit into the latter category. 

Reduced to brass tacks, Phantasm is the story of something weird going on at a small town mortuary that involves tiny robed creatures from another dimension, a flying bloodsucking orb, and the iconic Tall Man played by Angus Scrimm. It also, significantly, involves a teenager dealing with the death of his parents, and the off-kilter world that he finds himself in in the wake of that loss. And that, for me, is the key to Phantasm. 

Never a fan of “other dimension” horror tales, Phantasm, much like Jack Woods’ 1970 indie flick Equinox (to which Phantasm seems to owe a small debt, much smaller than say Sam Raimi’s The Evil Dead does), director Coscarelli doesn’t go down that particular portal in very much depth, which suits me just fine. Instead, Coscarelli focuses on the bizarre world of Morningside Cemetery and the uncertain and unstable nightmare that teenage Mike (Baldwin) is trapped in. 

More Favourite Horror Flicks, Alphabetically: Pearl

Pearl 

Dir: Ti West. Cast: Mia Goth, David Corenswet, Tandi Wright, Matthew Sunderland, Emma Jenkins-Purro, & Alistair Sewell. 2022

As much as I love X, I was unprepared for how much I would fall for Pearl. Set 61 years earlier than X, Pearl gives us the backstory of my favourite murdering granny, set in the era of the influenza pandemic in rural Texas. 

I love how West and co-writer Goth revisit and payoff themes, elements and incidents from X here. I love that they draw a connection between the height of the COVID pandemic with the earlier influenza pandemic. I love that Goth has an opportunity to really own her character here, to inhabit her, to write her, to co-create her. I love how Pearl’s parents know they are housing a psychopath in the making, and that this, to them, is Pearl’s true X-Factor. I love that West took the movie in a different direction than its predecessor by drawing inspiration from movies like The Wizard of Oz and Gone with the Wind. I love Goth’s performance here (she should have been handed an Oscar), and that of the other actors. I love the world this movie creates, I love its atmosphere. I love that, for me, it evokes the filmography of Curtis Harrington. I love that we get to see the spark in the young Pearl that, by movie’s end, is just starting to be snuffed out, only to be replaced by something much more lethal and sad. 

 

West and Goth have just wrapped shooting on MaXXXine as I write this, the third and final film in the X trilogy. It follows Pearl’s mirror image Maxine from the first film as she tries to make it big in 1980s Hollywood. I, for one, can’t wait to see what they’ve got in store for us. 

More Favourite Horror Flicks, Alphabetically: The Hills Have Eyes

The Hills Have Eyes 

Dir: Wes Craven. Cast: Susan Lanier, Robert Houston, Martin Speer, Dee Wallace, Russ Grieve, John Steadman, Michael Berryman, Virginia Vincent & Janus Blythe. 1977

While his Scream films tend to divide horror fans, I have a like/don’t like relationship with Wes Craven’s movies in general. Sometimes I react to a perceived silliness that I just can’t get beyond (i.e. his penchant for boobytrap-fuelled climaxes), sometimes I think he brings the worst out in his actors (Virginia Vincent in Hills, Ronee Blakley and — yes, sorry… Heather Langenkamp in A Nightmare on Elm Street), and sometimes, I actively dislike his movies (Shocker, Deadly Friend). Oddly, it’s some of his less popular titles that I respond to more positively, namely Deadly Blessing and Red Eye, though I think that Last House has its merits, and The Serpent and the Rainbow and The People Under the Stairs are worth catching, and A Nightmare on Elm Street is a bonafide horror classic. 

All that to say… By all accounts an intelligent and thoughtful man, Craven followed up his Last House on the Left with this less controversial but still lurid tale of an All-American Family at odds with its cannibal clan opposite. Stranded in the desert due to irritatingly dumb actions from Mom and Dad, the surviving members of the Carter family have to stay alive and retrieve Baby Katy from the clutches of the cannibal family lead by Papa Jupiter (Whitworth). 

Rife with social commentary, great raw shocks, genuine emotion, some indelible characters, and yes, boobytraps, The Hills Have Eyes gives me Craven at his best. For once, it’s less complicated than it need be.

Solidly remade by Alexandre Aja (co-produced by Craven) in 2006.

More Favourite Horror Flicks, Alphabetically: City of the Living Dead

City of the Living Dead (aka The Gates of Hell)

Dir: Lucio Fulci. Cast: Christopher George, Catriona MacColl, Carlo De Mejo, Janet Agren, Antonella Interlenghi & Giovanni Lombardo Radice. 1980

Lucio Fulci is one of my “comfort” filmmakers, having created a filmography from which segments have become very familiar to me, and which always serve to bring me back to the early days of hunting for Italian horror on VHS, and the joys of actually happening upon a rare uncut tape at some mom and pop shop back in the 1980s.

The director has a number of great horror films to his name — The Beyond, Zombie, The House by the Cemetery, and most notoriously, The New York Ripper — as well as gialli — Perversion Story, Don’t Torture a Duckling, A Lizard in a Woman’s Skin, The Psychic — but for me, City of the Living Dead is his most gleeful foray into the macabre. 

A doorway to Hell is opened when a priest in Dunwich, Massachusetts (Lovecraft territory), hangs himself. What follows (and precedes it) is a number of set pieces designed to wow splatter fans: A psychic awakens after being buried alive (a scene I believe Tarantino — ahem — paid homage to in Kill Bill: Vol. 2), poor old John Morgan (aka the late, great Giovanni Lombardo Radice) has his head drilled, internal organs are spewed, brains are squeezed out of skulls, and what’s an Italian splatter classick without a storm of maggots? 

There are surprising twists that may not be logical, but they sure work on a visceral level, and there are no rules about who will make to the other side, or even what that other side might look like when they get there. The whole thing is heavy on atmosphere and comic book lighting, and is not meant to offend or to be taken more seriously than the entertainment — albeit a little on the nihilist side — that it is. Admittedly, its pace has slowed, for me, on repeat viewings due to that same familiarity that makes me love it, but that initial introductory screening was extraordinary.