Death Stalks L.A. in Neon-Drenched first Trailer for Maxxxine

After surviving a farmhouse massacre in X in 1979 and then taking a detour to 1919 for the twisted upbringing of Pearl, director Ti West is about to submerge audiences deep in the grit and grime of the big city via Maxxxine. The first trailer for the final entry in the director’s neo-slasher trilogy landed on the web today, bringing back to the fold ever-aspiring starlet Maxine, played by Mia Goth, joined by another extremely impressive group of supporting performers. In fact, this might be one of the most star-studded quasi slashers that the genre has ever seen.

The action here is picking up in 1985, six years after the events of X, when Maxine has apparently made a significant name for herself in the adult film world. Of course, her ambitions can never truly be satisfied–she’s not content being a porn star, not when she could be a movie star. Maxxxine sees the titular character attempting to cross over to mainstream entertainment, set against the broad panic that was gripping Los Angeles in 1985 due to the serial murders by the killer The Night Stalker, eventually revealed as Richard Ramirez. Why do we get the feeling that West’s film might be about to engage in a little alternate history? Its early publicity, meanwhile, has been somewhat marred by reports that Goth was being sued by an extra on the film, who alleged that the actress intentionally kicked him in the head during shooting of a scene.

Looking at the trailer below, one certainly gets an immediate sense of the stylistic differences between Maxxxine and the two films that preceded it. West has always been clear about his intentions for each film in the series to reflect different eras of film itself–where X‘s most obvious comparison was the likes of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and Pearl invoked Golden Age of Hollywood musicals, Maxxxine feels much more grimy, catching the vibes of something like William Lustig’s Maniac with its “killer on the loose” framing.

Of course, the most prominent and impressive thing in that trailer is just seeing so many familiar faces in another A24 horror movie. Elizabeth Debicki plays the director of a film casting Maxine, joined by Moses Sumney, Michelle Monaghan, Bobby Cannavale, Lily Collins, Giancarlo Esposito, Kevin Bacon and even musician Halsey. Check out the trailer for yourself below, as we wait for Maxxxine to saunter into theaters on July 5, 2024.