"X" was a fantastic surprise and homage to horror films gone by, and Hollywood finally learned what I have known and been proselytising since the late 2000s: Ti West is great. It got more people (my partner included) to know who the hell he is ("Innkeepers" is good, "The Sacrament" fantastic, his sequel to "Cabin Fever" far outdoes the original film, and "House of the Devil" is an absolute fucking barnburner and easily his best work) and "Pearl", whilst weaker than "X" in my eyes, is a strong companion piece and ode to envy and the Hollywood Golden era. This movie attempts to mash the two together: the strong character work of "Pearl", the horror and sex of "X" and the Hollywood blending of both.
There are some amazing shots to this effect: the most striking image is of Kevin Bacon in a nightclub chasing after Maxine, lights flashing chaotically and brightly, like things are shot in slower shutter speed and a nightmarish vision of the sequence in "Fright Night". The opening manages to contrast what people THINK the 80s was with the grimy nastiness and terrible parts it actually was. The house from "Psycho" is used for a sequence, and Debicki drolly remarks that "they made a sequel, can you believe that?". Hah.
Bacon's character is dressed as Jack Nicholson from "Chinatown" and honestly steals the show, relishing the part and chewing both dialogue and scenery. Many of the supporting cast have similar fun: Lily Collins gets a scene as a working class Yorkshire girl actress who cannot even be bothered to remember her co-star's name, Bobby Cannavale and Michelle Monaghan have literal buddy cop adventures on the trail of the Night Stalker, and Giancarlo Esposito is refreshingly against type as "Teddy Knight: Hollywood Super Agent". The cast have fun with these parts.
But the film struggles with what it wants to say and be about. It has fun gore effects (an alleyway castration is particularly fine) and its reach attempts to juggle the censorship and hypocrisy of "Christian Values" and the links drawn between the worship of sex, violence and cinema, but it loses its core identity in the shuffle and struggle. Is it about Maxine getting her big break? Is it about fame corrupting? Is it about a woman trying to run from her past? Well the last act gives us some answer where it devolves into "No, it's about a scenery chewing serial killer (sorely missed honestly untilt his point, and yet rather out of place) trying to murder our lead". The film kills off several important characters off screen, seemingly in a "let's get this over with" drive, and tries to recapture the delirium of "Pearl" towards the end. I didn't dislike the film on the whole, but it is certainly the weakest of the trilogy. It will likely get some love from the "You Go Girl, Slay Queen" fandom, and may even drive people to the kinds of movies he clearly loved and attempts to evoke. But the entire exercise feels more akin to a tour through a video shop than a coherent, driven, passionate film. We have hints and glimpses of ambitious greatness, but it focuses on the wrong parts, and whilst it is admirable to have gone in the direction it did, he could have had more fun and better luck and results by embracing the "Video Nasty" style or hitting the beats of "Slasher Movie in the Big City" and playing it straight.
Ironically, West has been embraced by Hollywood in a tale of its excesses, but lost some of the joys which made him great, though he gets some mileage out of his big stars in parts normally played by quirky character actors. He even gets to hint at it a little, with a much-obliged and delightful cameo appearence from Larry Fessenden as a security guard. I appreciate him as a film maker and see this doing well with a queer horror crowd, but would prefer a return to his stripped back affairs.
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