MaXXXine

The weakest of West's trilogy and still a better-shot 1985 Los Angeles than most films manage.

Maxine has survived the Texas farm and is now an adult film star trying to cross into legitimate horror. The Night Stalker is in the papers. Somebody is killing women in her circle.

West does the period properly: video stores, the Hollywood sign, a studio backlot, and a genuine feel for the sleaze of the strip.

The problem is that the film has three plots, a giallo killer, a religious conspiracy and a career story, and it resolves the first two abruptly and without much interest.

Elizabeth Debicki as a director is very good and underused. Kevin Bacon is having fun.

The trilogy's argument, that Maxine and Pearl want the same thing sixty years apart, does land in the final scene.