X TRILOGY
It’s HERE! The X Trilogy is now out in a glorious box set with all three films nestled together in a fun collector’s set from A24 and Alliance Home Entertainment. Ti West made a name for himself in the horror genre with movies like The Innkeepers and The House of the Devil. He transitioned to doing work in television and then surprised audiences with the release of X in 2022. It was Deep Throat meets Texas Chainsaw Massacre. He then surprised fans by stating he and star Mia Goth made a prequel film with Pearl, which came out later that year. They wrapped up the trilogy with MaXXXine in 2024. This box set comes with some new commentary tracks, 90 minutes of behind-the-scenes footage, and a lovely 64 page booklet.
All three films pay homage to different eras and tones with Mia Goth starring in all three. Goth knocked it out of the park playing Maxine Minx and Pearl both of whom wanted to be stars in the industry. Let’s dive into each film.
X (2022)
Writer/director Ti West went back to his slasher roots with X. West intentionally takes a fairly simple horror premise and spins it out to a devilishly good time with X. It’s 1979 and a group of young filmmakers head out in a van to a farmhouse in rural Texas to make a porno called “The Farmer’s Daughters.” Martin Henderson plays Wayne, the producer with Kid Cudi and Brittany Snow as his leads, Jackson and Bobbi-Lynne, respectively. Mia Goth has two roles, one of which is Maxine, an up-and-coming starlet also appearing in the film. Rounding out the crew is director RJ (Owen Campbell) and his girlfriend Lorraine (Jenna Ortega). The low-budget endeavor should have been an easy shoot, but the real horrors come from filming in a rickety farmhouse owned by an elderly couple.
SPECIAL FEATURES
-Pearl Makeup Timelapse
-“The X Factor”
-“The Farmer’s Daughter”
-Filmmaker Commentary with D.P. Eliot Rockett and Production Designer Tom Hammock
Pearl (2022)
Pearl is an origin story for his other film X. In X, Mia Goth played two characters, one being Pearl, the terrifying old woman who lived at the farmhouse. Now we’re getting a look back at Pearl’s story dating back to 1918. She’s an innocent young woman whose husband is off fighting in World War 1. She’s living at the farm with her parents, an overbearing German mother and her father who is paralyzed and unable to care for himself. Pearl has grand visions of being an actress. She loves escaping to the local movie theater where she meets the Projectionist (Corenswet). He’s only ever referred to as The Projectionist, but he introduces Pearl to a world of illicit snuff films and gives her a false sense of hope. A local audition is Pearl’s only way out of the depression and mental unrest she lives in.
SPECIAL FEATURES
-“Coming Out of Her Shell: The Creation of Pearl”
-“Time After Time”
-Filmmaker Commentary with D.P. Eliot Rockett and Production Designer Tom Hammock
MaXXXine (2024)
Writer/director Ti West and star Mia Goth are closing out their trilogy with MaXXXine. X ended with Mia Goth’s Maxine Minx surviving a blood bath at a Texas farmhouse where she had been filming an adult movie. MaXXXine picks up in 1985 with her living in Tinseltown trying to make the big transition from porn to legitimate Hollywood studio films. She gets cast in the horror film The Puritan 2 after director Elizabeth Bender takes a chance on her. She’s played to perfection by Elizabeth Debicki. Maxine declares “I always wanted to be famous” and will stop at nothing to make that happen. Just as she’s about to start filming, she receives a mysterious VHS tape delivered to her door revealing that someone knows her connection to the Texas massacre. Her new friends start dying off and police start to suspect Maxine may be connected to the Night Stalker who has been killing young women in Hollywood.
SPECIAL FEATURES
-“The Belly of the Beast”
-“XXX Marks the Spot”
-“Hollywood is a Killer” Q&A with Ti West
-Deep Dive with Composer Tyler Bates
-Filmmaker Commentary with Production Designer Jason Kisvarday and Set Decorator Kelsi Ephraim
Here’s my unboxing video from TikTok
My original review of X
My original review of Pearl
My review of MaXXXine
