Ti West’s MaXXXine trailer continues the savage, fictional story of Maxine Mink — but amps up the horror by evoking the spectre of the real-life American serial killer Richard Ramirez, aka the Night Stalker, whose home-invasion murders in the 1980s terrified Los Angeles, the setting for the film.
In the third film of West’s trilogy, following 2022’s X and Pearl, Mia Goth reprises her role as Maxine, the aspiring adult-film star from X who moves to Hollywood to make it big. Beside her is a new addition to the cast: “Without Me” singer Halsey, who plays a friend of Maxine’s, as well as Breaking Bad star Giancarlo Esposito and Kevin Bacon, who counts the X influence Friday the 13th among his early roles.
“I don’t like walking around here with that frickin’ Night Stalker guy on the loose,” Halsey says in the trailer.
Then we’re shown news reels of reporters discusses the serial killer on the loose in Los Angeles.
“I can handle myself,” replies Maxine.
“So said every dead girl in Hollywood,” Halsey replies.
Also Read: Night Stalker Richard Ramirez: 13 Chilling Details From Netflix’s Docuseries
The MaXXXine Trailer and the Real Night Stalker
Other stars making their first appearances in the X trilogy are Elizabeth Debicki (The Crown), musician Moses Sumney (Creed), Michelle Monaghan (True Detective), Bobby Cannavale (The Watcher), and Lily Collins (Emily in Paris).
“In 1980s Hollywood, adult film star and aspiring actress Maxine Minx finally gets her big break. But as a mysterious killer stalks the starlets of Hollywood, a trail of blood threatens to reveal her sinister past,” reads the official synopsis of MaXXXine from A24.
The events of MaXXXine pick up where X left off. Set in 1979, X followed a group of young filmmakers (Jenna Ortega, Mia Goth, Brittany Snow, Kid Cudi, Owen Campbell, and Martin Henderson) who set out to make an adult film in rural Texas. They rent a cabin from an old couple who live in the farm house next door — but little do they know, they will soon face the wrath of Pearl (Goth), an old woman whose own dreams of becoming a star were crushed long ago.
Goth played both young Maxine and elderly Pearl in X. In the second film in the trilogy, Pearl, she plays young World War I era Pearl, and we learn the backstory of how she went from an innocent farm girl to a bitter, bloodthirsty axe murderer.
Taking place in the 1980s, MaXXXine shows us what happened to Maxine after she escaped Pearl’s farm in 1979.
Who Was the Night Stalker, Richard Ramirez?
Richard Ramirez was a serial killer who went on a killing spree in the Los Angeles area in the 1980s, killing men, women and children of all ages. He was known for breaking into people’s homes while they slept and leaving behind satanic symbols. He even carved pentagrams onto his victims’ bodies, as we see in the trailer for MaXXXine.
Ramirez was caught and apprehended on August 30, 1985, after a group of Los Angeles residents spotted him in the street and prevented him from escaping until police arrived to arrest him.
In 1989, Ramirez was convicted of 13 murders and sentenced to death by the gas chamber — though he would ultimately succumb to cancer in 2013 while still awaiting his fate on death row.
According to the 2021 Netflix docuseries Nigh Stalker directed by Joe Berlinger, more than one of Ramirez’s survivors recalled swearing to God that they would do whatever Ramirez asked if he would spare their life. His response: “Don’t swear on God — swear on Satan.”
You can watch the trailer for MaXXXine above.
Main Image: Mia Goth in MaXXXine, A24.
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