Tech mogul Slater King meets cocktail waitress Frida at a fundraising gala, and whisks her and her friend Jess off to a vacation on his freaking private island, where things begin to take a turn for the sinister! 

Any film where the main character keeps near-constantly asking his companions if they’re having a good time is going to start looking suspicious. Slater King (Channing Tatum) professes to be a firm believer in, let’s say for the sake of argument, alternate forms of therapy when it comes to dealing with one’s traumas and tribulations. The island, Slater’s own private island ffs, boasts at least the appearance of opulence, with white barely-there vacation clothes for both men and women, free-range chickens amongst the lush greenery, yoga, posh catered food on the daily, mountains of club-kid drugs and rivers of alcohol, pools and a ridiculous mansion to hide all kinds of horrific secrets, all surrounded by special purple lilies with a distinctive scent they turned into the perfume Desideria (meaning desire, longing) to give to the women as gifts. Oh, and like, a lot of snakes. 

It’d be easy to explain away how Frida (Naomi Ackie) doesn’t remember the first night – she’s here and overwhelmed by the opulence and purported acceptance of them-all, plus we’re talking all kinds of designer drugs she willingly partook in, who wouldn’t close their eyes and indulge a little? The gang Slater’s surrounded himself with all seem like real nice welcoming people – photographer Vic (Christian Slater) in his fishing hats constantly taking potentially incriminating polaroids, unwilling to talk about how his pinkie went missing; Cody (Simon Rex) the personal chef can’t seem to remember not to call former reality-show star Sarah (Adria Arjona) ‘babe’;  DJ Tom (Haley Joel Osment) turns out to be a joiner no matter what the wicked game happens to be; and rounding out our boys is innocent little graduate Lucas (Levon Hawke), who definitely does not have the stomach for the real purpose of the sinister island life. Stan (Cris Costa) is there as security, stoic and uncompromising, and even Slater’s dubious therapist Rich (Kyle MacLachlan) shows up on the island at some point, where he wigs the hell out of Frida’s already-increasing paranoia. 

For the feminine side of the foreboding island setup, we have – Camilla (Liz Caribel) and Heather (Trew Mullen), basically pretty mindless party girls always up for everything, even snake venom shots; the former reality show star who actually bothered training for months for the physicality of the role, Sarah; Frida and her long-suffering friend Jess (Alia Shawkat); and finally, like all good assistants, she who knows way more about the truth of the island than she should, the heavily beleaguered Slater King personal assistant Stacy (Geena Davis). Given that your movie reviewer here happens to proudly sport she/her pronouns, it’s safe to say I am completely biased towards the female side of the movie because, make no mistake, gender lines, like battle lines, are about to be laid on the island and crossed in the most vile, violent fashion possible. 

Saying much of anything more would give the entire game away – why the helper maid with the snake tattoo keeps calling Frida ‘Red Rabbit’ in the most familiar fashion, the whole deal with the red gift bags and unique flower perfume, the fishing trip for the men that is most definitely not a red herring, and perhaps most especially, the whole surreal forgetting-what-day-it-is nature of the island for the womenfolk only apparently. 

For a tale of horror turned into some well-deserved retribution, keep your eyes open for Blink Twice, in theaters now! 

1. Cesar Romero, played the Joker in the totally zany Batman TV show from the 1960s, starring Adam West as the titular hero. Romero did it first, among all these other versions of the Joker, you could always tell that Romero was having a blast being the Clown Prince of Crime, a mastermind and a villain you bet, but constantly full of that laughter that puts one in the mind of the Tim Curry version of Pennywise the clown. Romero enjoyed a long and great career in TV and film both before and after his stint as Batman, and his fashion sense as the Joker has echoes in the beloved green-and-purple even to this day. 

It has to be said, though the movie came out when I was less than double-digits-old, that the Jack Nicholson version of the Joker, from Tim Burton’s Batman, is the IT Joker for my generation. He had it all – fashion sense to knock your socks off, aspirations of being the world’s first fully functioning homicidal artist, a penchant for over-the-top gestures that begin as entertainment and end in your death, and of course, he could succumb to massive violence at any given moment. Nicholson was already hugely popular at the time he starred as the Joker, and his quite different portrayal of Jack Napier, the ruthless gangster turned to madcap murderer is forever a classic. Plus Nicholson delivering lines like, “You ever dance with the devil by the pale moonlight?”, makes his Joker absolutely unique. 

3. It turns out, the person who’s portrayed the Joker arguably the longest, is a far cry from the major movie roles he’s generally known for – Luke Skywalker, aka Mark Hamill. Premiering as the Clown Prince of Crime in what is also arguably still the best Batman cartoon series put out, now known as Batman the Animated Series from 1992, Hamill breathed new life into our beloved villain in his own highly unique way. Even the iconic Joker laugh, Mark Hamill managed to make that his own too, and given the fact that Hamill’s voiced the Joker in, let’s see here, Batman TAS, Superman the Animated Series, The New Batman Adventures, Static Shock, and yes, even Justice League, is all a great testament to his dedication to the character and how everyone else seems to love his version of it. Hamill even voiced the Joker in the animated movie adaptation of Batman The Killing Joke, based on the award-winning graphic novel that offers us a potential Joker origin story. 

It’s also entirely worth mentioning that Mark Hamill has also voiced the Joker in what are generally believed to be the best Batman video games, and this one’s even a trilogy – Batman: Arkham Asylum, Batman: Arkham City, and Batman: Arkham Knight. Even if you don’t play video games, it’s worth looking into the Joker cutscenes from any of the Batman Arkham games. 

4. The Gotham TV show had some big aspirations, trying to do a prequel series before Batman was even a Thing in Gotham City, and yet still have a city full of crime, intrigue, and comfortingly familiar villains. We loyal fans sat through a season of crime boss gang wars, a season of the rise of various familiar wicked faces, and finally were rewarded for our patience and belief in the showrunners when, in season three, a cult of personality and ruin rose for Jerome, and eventually Jeremiah, Valeska, both played to excellent reviews by Cameron Monaghan. The name the Joker was never uttered in character for Monaghan’s performance, but every single last person watching knew damn well who the Valeska twins were meant to represent, and it’s all due to Monaghan’s outstanding and unforgettable acting. 
   

It’s another reverse irony that while Mark Hamill enjoyed Star Wars fame first and then went on to do his own version of the Joker, Cameron Monaghan played a very different version of the proto-Jokers we’ll say, and then went on to become huge in the Star Wars Jedi video games. 

And finally, we have what could be said to be the most depressingly accurate version of a real-world Joker, Arthur Fleck as played by Joaquin Phoenix. Arthur is a failed clown and aspiring stand-up comedian with a whole boatload of issues, a severe neurological laughing disorder, and is surrounded by the hedonism and the indifference of the High vs the Low, set in a gritty ready-to-explode Gotham City during the early 1980’s recession. Phoenix’s portrayal of Fleck’s descent into clown-laced craziness, from an everyday person with normal hopes and dreams dashed against the nobody-cares reality causing him not to fall into madness but dive headfirst, is a unique and even sympathetic version of the Joker that left audiences stunned. Even Phoenix’s look for the Joker had different colors and a different strut. Still, there was absolutely no doubt that, after Fleck shot Murray Franklin quite dead on live TV, it was the same familiar, absolutely batshit insane clown we all love.

After the stylized gore and delightfully depraved storytelling of ‘X’, the subverted dreamland of ‘Pearl’, director Ti West’s third offering ‘Maxxxine’ was somewhat disappointing.

Mia Goth reprised her role as Maxine and was every bit the ethereal horror movie icon. The audience is led around the twisted world of 1980’s Hollywood complete with a killer soundtrack and crunchy-looking hairdos. The character of Maxine wants to be a legitimate actress rather than an adult film star. In ‘X’ Maxine repeatedly states that she wants to be famous, in ‘Maxxxine’ she is famous as an adult film star. Many of the male characters recognize her from her work, so Maxine has achieved the fame she was desperate for but wants to legitimize herself as an actress despite her dark past following her to Tinseltown. 

Kevin Bacon was also an unexpected treat as the slimy PI. The rest of the cast was stellar, each imbuing their characters with enough quirk and intrigue, to make what essentially was a pretty basic storyline; entertaining. Elizabeth Debicki particularly shines as the female horror director who sees Maxine’s potential and casts the aspiring actress in her horror sequel (Meta anyone?). Debicki is every bit as intimidating and impressive as her amazing shoulder pads!

It’s not that ‘Maxxxine’ “jumps the shark” exactly, I can understand wanting to give your trilogy a big finish. However, the production’s desire to go big meant that ‘Maxxxine’ lost the delicious claustrophobia its previous installments had that works so well in the horror genre. Maybe its because we are no longer in the grips of a worldwide pandemic, ‘Pearl’ and ‘X’ were filmed back-to-back in March 2021, ‘Maxxxine’ didn’t have the building sense of dread that served the others so well.

‘Maxxxine’ is not constructed like a traditional horror instead more like a thriller or crime drama. Yet, the kill scenes still remain inventive and disturbing; the alleyway scene lives rent-free in my head for better or worse! Despite all the pro’s ‘Maxxxine’ is just missing that special something (dare I say that ‘X factor’?) which elevates it from a basic slasher movie. The layer of realism added to the first half of ‘Maxxxine’ feels like it’s shaking off the tentative optimism of ‘X’ and the technicolor delusions of ‘Pearl’ in order to mature into the real cutthroat world of showbiz. This angle could have worked if the direction had stuck to it. Instead, the storyline becomes increasingly more convoluted.

The penultimate scene is an outlandish mess highlighted by the fact it takes place under the looming Hollywood sign. With added guns and helicopters it’s easy to forget the humble barn that started Maxine’s story. Whether it was too much studio intervention, the curse of the doomed finale of a trilogy, or Ti West forgetting that scaling back scenes has the most impact. The sensory of assault of ‘Maxxxine’s’ finale does not unnerve the audience the same way Pearl’s flinching, tear-filled unnatural smile still does. 

‘Maxxxine’ is still an entertaining watch. Fans of the unofficial trilogy will enjoy seeing how Maxine’s story ends. But after both ‘X’ and ‘Pearl’ became, quite rightly, instant horror classics, this fan expected more.