news

한어Русский языкEnglishFrançaisIndonesianSanskrit日本語DeutschPortuguêsΕλληνικάespañolItalianoSuomalainenLatina

The release of the movie "X" and its prequel "Pearl" in the past two years made British actress Mia Goth extremely popular and she became the new queen of horror films.

To call it a horror movie is a bit of an understatement.

After all, in our minds, horror movies are mostly about ghosts and the like, and "X" and "Pearl" are obviously not among them.

They're more like thrillers, B-movies that are heavy on blood and sex.

So of course there is a certain scale, but it is not really horrific.

I never thought that two years later, there would be a third film. Maxine was released in the US last month.

The heroine is still Mia Goth.

The story line connects to "X". It tells the story of Maxine, a girl who survived alone five years after the farm massacre.

After reading Maxine, you will understand that this story is actually quite unreliable.

It's said to be a sequel, but the connection to the previous game is far-fetched. We'll talk about it later.

To put it bluntly, seeing that the first two films were so popular, the investors discovered that it was profitable, so they found a random excuse to force a sequel to be made to attract investors.

Thanks to the injection of capital, the third film was made. But it was also the interference of capital that made this "Maxine" obviously have too many things that should not have appeared compared to the first two films.

Although the director is still the same director, the film is not the same anymore, it looks messy and silly.

Let me first briefly introduce the first two, which are not scary B-level movies.

"X" is the first one, in which the heroine Maxine, played by Mia Goth, and a group of friends live in a farm house to shoot pornographic films. It turns out that the old woman on the farm is a pervert, and several young people are killed, leaving only Maxine. In the end, Maxine kills the strange old woman and escapes.

The first film still has a bit of a "horror" feel to it. It stems from the twisted psychology of the weird old lady due to sexual repression. When the audience doesn't know what the weird old lady wants to do, that's when the horror is strongest. When she starts killing, the film becomes a blood-thirsty film.

In contrast, the second film, "Pearl," simply abandoned "horror" and began to embrace "plasma" in all aspects.

As a prequel, the protagonist is no longer Maxine, but a perverted old woman on the farm. It tells the story of how she became a pervert.

The heroine is still played by Mia Goth, who plays the young old lady Pearl.

The second part is much richer in character creation than the first part. The background is 1918, the era of the great plague. Everyone is in a state of panic.

Pearl's mother lived by the fingers, taking care of her paralyzed husband and managing the entire farm, which made her cry alone in bed at night. Even though life was like this, her daughter Pearl still wanted to take the money to go to the town to watch movies, to dance, and to be a star.

The audience thought the mother was going to kill someone, but it was Pearl who exploded instead.

The first half of "Pearl" is almost all about presenting the problem. The second half should have been about showing how to solve the problem, but as a genre film, the second half begins to shift the focus with blood and killing, and uses the heroine's madness to cover up the problem.

After all, it is essentially a blood film, so there is no need to worry too much about logic. It is enough to watch it for the visual stimulation.

In this "Maxine", it is a forced sequel, and the timeline is five years after the first "X".

The initiation of the dramatic conflict is quite bizarre. Maxine was found and told that she had committed murder five years ago and she was caught.

I saw it with amazement.

A perverted serial killer killed many people. The girl managed to fight back and escape. However, many years later, someone came to her and said, hey, you killed someone.

Isn't this a legal education propaganda film?

At the same time, a serial killer appeared in the city. The most bizarre part of the film is that the identity of this killer is beyond imagination. I won't spoil the story here, just understand that it was the outrageous mother who opened the door for the outrageous.

In other words, whether it's Maxine killing the pervert in self-defense but being used as a handle, or the serial killer that suddenly appeared, they are all side stories that fool the audience.

The main storyline of "Maxine" is that Maxine wants to switch from being an adult film star to making movies.

Maxine's personal charm is fully displayed in this line: her self-confidence, her pursuit, her clarity and persistence, etc.

Including a lot of cinephilia in the film. Chaplin, Taxi Driver, Keaton, Psycho, Jamie Lee Curtis, John Travolta, Chinatown, Demi Moore, Brooke Shields, Theda Bara, etc.

During this period, there are also issues such as women's rights, resistance to patriarchy, religion, the decline of the porn industry, etc.

But don't forget, this is a "horror movie".

All of its "horror", that is, the plasma elements, have nothing to do with the main plot, but are all concentrated in the side plots.

This is the most fatal shortcoming of "Maxine", and it is also completely different from the previous two films.

Judging from the style of the first two films, the audience watching Maxine is definitely looking for the "violence and sex" that everyone likes to see. It's just to vent emotions and do whatever feels good.

But what does the director do?

Although the story is about the pornographic film industry, there is almost no "sex" in the film and it is quite conventional.

Not to mention the violence, there are so many blood-throwing scenes in the whole film, I don't know if they add up to 10 seconds. They just rely on those two or three scenes to label it as "large scale" to fool the audience.

A blood-thirsty film, instead of focusing on visual violence, tries to imitate others' expression and adds a lot of random cinephilia and social issues.

Because the capital provided money, the director felt that using only blood plasma was too superficial, so he put his skills into this aspect? To show that he has depth?

This is putting the cart before the horse.

If the audience wants to watch this, why not study Theo Angelopoulos? Why not watch Kieslowski? Isn't Almodóvar still alive and well and filming?

Don’t say that Mia Goth is wasted, just look at the supporting characters in the film.

Elizabeth Debicki, Lily Collins, Kevin Bacon, Michelle Monaghan, Giancarlo Esposito...

I was especially shocked when I saw Lily Collins appear. She was also acting in a blood film? It felt like the dimensional wall was broken.

It can be seen that the director really attracted investment. Compared with the first two films with unknown actors, this film has a very bright star ensemble. However, the final product is the worst in the series, which is really disappointing.

Finally, I would like to mention one more thing. The trilogy series can almost be said to be Mia Goth’s personal show.

There are gossip movies everywhere. But not every gossip movie has Mia Goth in it.

Her vigorous vitality and overflowing self-confidence have brought the beauty of publicity to the extreme, which is truly outstanding.

In the first two films, especially the second one "Pearl", Mia participated in the screenwriting herself, which ultimately made the entire film almost revolve around her.

The last five minutes of the film's long monologue and three minutes of dialogue-free close-up are considered the best in her acting career, and are also quite impressive in the entire horror film industry.

But watching Maxine again, Mia has almost no room to perform throughout the film.

The mixture of too many elements not only makes the film seem unfocused, but also deprives Mia of the opportunity to perform, even though she is clearly the real core of the film.

If you continue to play it this way, please don't release a fourth part.

Business/Ale (WeChat: pachongsw1)
To join the fan exchange group, add WeChat: caodahua1994

I hope you will click on "Watch" and share it with more people.