Throwback Thrills-Day

 

MAXXXINE (B) - God bless movie star Mia Goth and writer-director Ti West for their commitment to their trilogy of retro horror films, a delightful mix of spoof and homage. Here, they take their story -- which began with "X," set in the 1970s -- into the day-glo '80s around the seedy San Fernando Valley's porn industry as Goth's lead character Maxine yearns to cross over into the respectability of Hollywood.

 

Goth is riveting again as the cut-throat striver who will do anything to be a movie star, even as the friends around her start falling victim to a serial killer stalking L.A. In "X," she survived a slaughter on a porn shoot at a Texas ranch, with a dual role as the murderous old lady in the farmhouse, whom Goth then portrayed in the heady prequel "Pearl," set during the 1918 flu pandemic. Now set in 1985, the story finds Goth running from her past -- not just that '70s bloodbath but also her strict Christian upbringing, which is brought into stark relief through a single opening flashback scene to her childhood.

West crafts the story around his meal ticket, and he has an uncanny ability to not only send up the thrillers of the '80s era, but also to steep this film in the texture and tropes of the movies of that Cinemax era. (The needle drops of hits by ZZ Top and Kim Carnes don't hurt.) He also has a facility with writing dialogue that also walks the line between authenticity and parody.

Goth (who also stole a few scenes in "Emma" a few years ago) carries this on her shoulders, with a placid facial expression that brings to mind the mask-like visage of Isabelle Huppert. While portraying characters (Maxine, as well as Pearl) who were desperate to be stars, Goth emerges from this sequel as a classic movie idol. She gets solid support from veterans Giancarlo Esposito (as her sly business manager); Elizabeth Debicki as the mother-hen horror-movie director; and Kevin Bacon as a creepy Cajun private eye, chewing up scenery as if he just got kicked off the set of "The Big Easy" for overacting.

I could watch West and Goth follow this saga for a few more decades. It's a lot of dumb, juicy fun.

BLAIR WITCH PROJECT (1999) (B+) - It was an interesting experiment, revisiting this onetime indie phenomenon on its 25th anniversary screening, along with a full house full of 20- and 30-somethings at a midnight show. I was wondering how it would hold up and curious about how it would play to a generation steeped in the internet and social media.

I first watched this on video some months after it was released in summer 1999. It was notable at the time for a brilliant PR campaign that tried to dupe us -- in the early days of the internet -- into thinking that this found-footage film was real (going so far as to hide the three stars from the spotlight during the rollout at film festivals). That all now seems quaint looking back from our jaded media-saturated land of artificial intelligence.

I heard several millennials grumble their disappointment as the lights came up and the final credits rolled, and the woman in front of me spent much of the final climactic 20 minutes of the movie scrolling through her cell phone. I was able to appreciate a slow burn of a thriller with fresh eyes and an open mind. When I first saw it, the steadily building terror had me jangled, even though I knew that it wasn't a real documentary.

This time, I was surprised to see how methodically -- and often blandly -- the suspense builds. And I was impressed by the three actors -- alpha female Heather Donahue, Michael C. Williams, and Joshua Leonard (the only one to go on to have a decent acting career, including in "Humpday" and "Fully Realized Humans") -- who mostly improvised the dialogue and who wielded the handheld cameras, a key visual effect throughout the film.  

Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez conceived the movie and directed it and even edited it. The banality of three young adults getting lost in the woods, spooked by some strange but not necessarily scary sounds, dominates the running time until really the final 10 minutes when everything bursts into full-on horror. That includes the now-iconic scene of Donahue, snot running out of her nose, doing a video-selfie, her character apologizing on camera to the group's parents for her role in stranding the trio, and the final image before the cut to black. 

It is difficult to reconcile the experience of 1999 with that of 2024, but you can still say that "Blair Witch" is a successful horror film, that can jangle your nerves even after multiple viewings.

BONUS TRACKS

"Maxxxine's" soundtrack blasts through era hits from New Order and Judas Priest, plus Animotion's synth earworm "Obsession":

And near the climax we are treated to Carol Burnett, of all people, belting out "There's No Business Like Show Business." (One character during the film reminds Maxine of the cutthroat nature of the industry: "It's not called show friends; it's called show business."