Horror filmmaker Ti West steps out of the blackness behind the Bates Motel hours after the last tourist tram has made it to safety. Behind him looms the âPsychoâ house where Mrs. Bates lurked in the window monitoring the movements of Janet Leighâs Marion Crane â a shot West references in his 2022 slasher âX,â set in 1979, about an elderly farm wife named Pearl who becomes murderously inflamed by a troupe of adult actors shooting a skin flick in her barn. Pearl, an aspiring performer herself, got her own movie the following year in Westâs eponymous prequel that rewinds to 1918, when the psychotic failed starlet fed her rival to an alligator named Theda Bara.
Now, West is releasing the third chiller in the series, âMaXXXine,â which finds Maxine Minx, the sole survivor of the first filmâs âTexas porn star massacre,â hellbent on becoming a legitimate movie star in 1980s Los Angeles. After six years of sex work, Maxine, played ferociously by Mia Goth, has finally landed her first mainstream role in a sequel called âThe Puritan 2.â But her past is still in pursuit, with one chase scene sending Maxine fleeing for her life across the Universal Studios backlot, through the Old West facades to the New York stoops, eventually scampering up the jagged âPsychoâ stairs right behind him.
âItâs a weird thing to point a camera at if youâre not making âPsycho,ââ says West, 43, as he heads farther into the darkness, lighted only by a handful of eerie red lanterns. He calls his trilogy âmovie-flavored moviesâ â artifice and dreams are the top notes. âXâ is about scrappy strivers trying to break into the business; âPearl,â about the dangers of buying into the fantasies onscreen. âMaXXXine,â the highest-profile film of Westâs career, wrestles with accepting that Hollywood isnât quite what one hopes.
Mia Goth in the movie âMaXXXine,â her third with West. âIt was the first time I had that dynamic between me and a director where it felt there was something really intimate to it,â she says.
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âHe was ready to deal with this kind of scale, and itâs definitely something he was hungry for,â Goth says, chiming in over Zoom. In addition to playing multiple roles across this mini-franchise, Goth co-wrote âPearlâ and executive-produced the last two films. âWe just kind of manifested it,â she continues, âbuilt this entire trilogy into existence. And itâs been incredible to see it unfold.â
West, however, tends to be scrupulously anti-hype. âIt is not lost on me that there is a meta thing happening with these movies and me and Mia, and thatâs gratifying and strange,â he says. âAnd itâs also something that weâve never taken any time to stop and talk about. We were too busy making movies.â
While the marketing team at A24 is all in on âMaXXXineâ â âIâve never had a billboard before,â the director beams â West has been a legitimate filmmaker for well over a decade. His resume of well-regarded independent movies includes the 2016 cowboy vengeance drama âIn a Valley of Violenceâ with Ethan Hawke and John Travolta, plus a string of festival hits like 2009âs âThe House of the Devil,â which disposed of a pre-celeb Greta Gerwig early on in a marvelously nasty Hitchcock-esque shock.
âIt hasnât lost its mystique,â West says of the âPsychoâ house, a âMaXXXineâ location. âEven tonight itâs still like: What a rare opportunity to actually walk up the steps.â
(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)
Still, heâs come a long way since his first trip to the Bates Motel. When he was in middle school, he and his family vacationed at Universal Studios Florida, which had just wrapped âPsycho IVâ on its own copy of the set. As a promotional tie-in, the park launched an attraction that taught fans the camera tricks behind the famous shower scene. One volunteer got to brandish a rubber knife and learn how to stab a Marion Crane scream-a-like. West wasnât chosen, but he went back home with a pair of Bates Motel souvenir slippers and an appreciation for film craft.
âNow thatâs all gone, and itâs a Shrek ride or something,â he shrugs. âNo offense to Shrek.â
West spent the rest of his youth in Wilmington, Del., renting five VHS tapes for $5 on Fridays at his local video store. One weekend, he rented âHabit,â a grungy but brilliant microbudget vampire flick made by filmmaker Larry Fessenden. Shortly after, he moved to New York and took a film class taught by director Kelly Reichardt, whoâd played a cameo in the film. Reichardt introduced the two and Fessenden became Westâs mentor, eventually producing his debut feature, âThe Roost,â shot exactly 20 years ago with more moxie than money.
âApparently, now weâre mentioned on the tour,â West adds of his upgraded circumstances, in mild disbelief. âI feel a little bit like Iâve made it.â Filming on the lot took Herculean coordination. Some theme-park trams were rerouted, others couldnât be. Shots were hastily filmed in the gaps between gawkers. Once, the timing went awry and a few dozen tourists interrupted a take. Cameras out, the visitors snapped away at Goth and Elizabeth Debicki like they were tigers in a zoo.
West and his dog, Molly, visit Hollywood Forever Cemetery, one of the filming locations for âMaXXXine.â
(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)
If West is now a Hollywood animal himself, the only affectation heâs adopted is a tiny 12-pound black dog named Molly who accompanies him everywhere. During this night stroll, sheâs quietly tucked into a sling around his hips. On set, Molly had her own chair that read âExecutive Paw-ducer.â The next morning, as our personal tour of âMaXXXineâsâ locations continues, sheâs wearing an A24-branded leash and trying to sneak sips of Westâs iced oat-milk latte.
Today, he and Molly and a photographer are piled into an SUV that stops at Hollywood Forever Cemetery, the location where two of the filmâs detectives, played by Michelle Monaghan and Bobby Cannavale, make a grisly discovery. (Molly insists on relieving herself in a spot without any graves â sheâs a professional.) The fictional corpses planted here by the production were mutilated in the manner of Richard Ramirez, popularly known as the Night Stalker, the real-life L.A. serial killer who murdered at least 13 people during the â80s. That paranoia is the filmâs terrifying backdrop, just as the Spanish flu pandemic leaves scars on âPearl.â
But this isnât a Night Stalker story â thereâs already half a dozen of those. âMaXXXine,â like Westâs âThe House of the Devilâ before it, vibrates with the tension of Reagan-era Satanic panic, a moment of media-hyped conspiracy that manages to feel both old-fashioned and contemporary.
âWhen I was growing up, you could get arrested for skateboarding, and now itâs going to be in the Olympics,â West says. But grandstanding moralists stay the same, even if A24 had to hire faux protesters to wave placards that read, âHonor God, End Smut.â
âIâm hopeful that this October there are people that are going to dress up as her from all three movies,â West says of Gothâs many incarnations, including âMaXXXine,â pictured. âThatâll be really strange.â
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West puts a lot of emphasis on making the past look real, not cartoonish. No ridiculous zebra prints, no suburban mall pastels. Authenticity is baked into everything, from the camera techniques and practical effects to Maxineâs fried split ends.
The âMaXXXineâ review embargo has just broken as our car arrives at Hollywood Boulevard and Wilcox Avenue, but West barely glances at his phone. âItâll be the appropriate mixture of âbest movie of the three,â âworst movie ever,ââ he says calmly. So far, the critics like it, but West seems more fulfilled by the act of making, promoting and releasing three films in four years with barely a day off. During that same time span, he also met his fiancĂ©e, DJ Alison Wonderland, and welcomed his first child, who was born two weeks after the trilogy wrapped. (Wonderland, nine months pregnant at the time, cameos in the film spinning records at a nightclub.)
âWeirdly enough, my first place in Los Angeles was also on Hollywood Boulevard,â West says, crossing the street toward Maxineâs second-story dump, which usually houses overstock from the Hollywood Suit Outlet next door.
He moved to L.A. in 2005 after wrapping âThe Roost,â figuring the natural progression of things was to head west and write another script. Relocation was daunting. âThereâs no real sense of where youâre supposed to live and who to send the script to,â he laughs. His first spot was quieter â âa little garden apartment, very L.A.â â but it amused him to get mail addressed to Ti West, Hollywood Blvd.
âI didnât have an interest in telling that âHollywood chews you up and spits you outâ story,â says West, on Hollywood Boulevard where the movie was shot.
(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)
Nearly two decades later, heâs lived and worked here for so long that he pokes fun at being that naive kid who hoped heâd be instantly handed the keys to the city. In truth, his ascent has been a grind. West kept at it, as did colleagues Joe Swanberg and Andrew Bujalski and the Duplass Brothers, who also premiered films alongside âThe Roostâ at the South by Southwest Festival in Austin, Texas, the year that mumblecore became a movement.
They were all âmaking very tiny movies,â West remembers. âI think thatâs where the chip on your shoulder comes from: Why doesnât someone just realize all the work Iâve been putting in? Why donât they know that Iâm up 19 hours a day, seven days a week, working on this thing?â He describes those lean, exhausting years like someone whoâs scaled his share of mountains.
âBut I came of age in the â90s, when making independent movies was cool,â he continues. âAre the 25-year-olds sleeping on floors doing that now? Or do they want to be making influencer content? Probably I would have wanted to do that too because if it goes viral, you just jump ahead. If youâre trying to change your life, thatâs a quicker path.â
âWe were in the Old West town and I was like, âTi, this is the coolest job in the world,ââ says Goth. âAnd he looked at me like, âI know.â And we were just so giddy.â
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Westâs first climb when he arrived in town was a hike up to the Hollywood sign before more fences and alarms were erected around it. âI had to do it,â he recalls. âI just thought, âAre they really going to arrest me?ââ He hesitates, then chuckles. âMaybe the answerâs yes.â But he got away with it and was permitted to legally return while scouting for âMaXXXineâ as he wanted to stage a showdown under the letters. For practical reasons, he was forced to rebuild the sign nearly to scale in Santa Clarita. Even so, the shoot was so tight on time and money that he had just eight hours to film at the duplicate site, including a lunch break and the commute up and down the hill.
âPTSD,â West mutters, flashing back to the hectic pace as he continues down Hollywood Boulevard and turns into the alleyway where Maxine gets menaced by a Buster Keaton clone. Every scene shot on the busy street â and there are a lot of them â had to be completed in four days, with the vintage store fronts mostly erected the morning-of to make sure the sets werenât destroyed. When the filmâs phony video shop went up, Westâs phone buzzed with texts from friends whoâd happened to drive by. A few asked if he was behind the fake signage; others mistakenly celebrated it as real.
âItâs just a circus at all times and nobody really cares that youâre shooting a movie,â says West, in front of the Hollywood Theatre.
(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)
âTo turn this all into an X-rated area was a very big project, lots of neon,â West says. As he gestures toward the marquees of the DĂ©jĂ Vu gentlemenâs club and the Vine Theatre (both seen in âMaXXXXineâ), a bus pulls up and unloads 50 or so Scientologists in matching navy skirts and trousers who politely ignore his descriptions of sin as they head into the L. Ron Hubbard Life Exhibition. West is also unfazed. âWe had to be out here in the chaos of it all. It shows in the movie.â
Some days, he got lucky. West wanted an insert shot of Theda Baraâs star on the Walk of Fame as a nod to Pearlâs pet gator, and, magically, it was just steps from the DĂ©jĂ Vu. Kevin Bacon, playing one of âMaXXXineâsâ heavies, has his own star across the intersection, while Giancarlo Esposito, cast in a memorable role as Maxineâs agent, is embedded three streets to the east.
But this is also the block where an angry driver smashed through the barricades and crashed into a parked car in the middle of filming. The cops who were hired to guard the set had to abandon their posts in pursuit. West and the cast and crew held their positions and finished the scene.
âFrom making a movie here, I realize itâs difficult to get permits because the neighborhoods just donât want movies shooting,â West says. âBut itâs Hollywood. If thereâs ever a reason to be in traffic, it should be because Will Smith is flipping a car in the middle of the street. Every other reason to be stuck in traffic sucks.â
West hopes to stage his next movie in a more controlled environment. Heâs 40 pages into that script â âIt will not be a trilogy, I assure you of thatâ â and already imagining the comforts of constructing a set thatâs âmeticulous and complicated.â Heâs challenging himself to surprise audiences and top all three Maxine films combined. âThatâs the goal: You put in the reps and you keep getting better.â
âSheâs not trying to work for UNICEF,â West says of Gothâs Maxine Minx, âbut Iâm just trying to put you on her side in the movie so that by the end of âMaXXXine,â youâre like, âIâm just glad she made it.ââ
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But for now, heâs focused on getting people to root for the trials and tribulations of his marvelously wicked Maxine Minx. Right after the car crash, West and Goth hustled to film a scene of Maxine strutting the red carpet at Mannâs Chinese.
Eventually, âMaXXXineâ itself will debut there too: an â80s-chic world premiere with Angelyne parked outside in her pink Corvette and attendees dressed like Gordon Gekko and Sunset Strip metal heads. West wears a white suit jacket â âvery âMiami Vice,ââ he says â while his toddler sports âRisky Businessâ-style sunglasses and charms paparazzi by giving them a letâs-do-lunch-babe finger point.
That was a couple days ago and West is back with us at the Chineseâs autographed concrete, still finding his footing in the surreality of it all. He nods approvingly that the town hasnât swapped out its shoe prints of classic stars for, well, Shrek.
âThe movies arenât going anywhere, because telling stories is how people communicate,â he says. Tenacious creatives like Maxine and Pearl and yes, even he and Goth, are now part of Hollywood lore. West exhales. âMaybe someday, someone will say, âI really like those old movies â like âMaXXXine.ââ