Welcome back to Behind The Scenes Saturday!!! Today is dedicated to one of my favorite sequels, MaXXXine! Filled with sex and death, this is a thrilling tale of the darkness behind the glamour. So, watch out for Buster Keaton, keep a good car compacter handy, and enjoy these fun pictures and bits of trivia!!

(Trivia provided by IMDb.com)

(Pictures provided by google.com, instagram.com, facebook.com, and IMDb.com)

(WARNING!! GRAPHIC SPECIAL EFFECTS!!)

(SPOILER ALERT!!!)

• Maxine’s (Mia Goth) “Oui” shirt is a reference to Oui, a men’s adult pornographic magazine, published in the United States, that featured explicit nude photographs.
• The film’s director, Ti West originally planned for this film to be the conclusion of this franchise. He later stated that he did indeed have plans for a fourth film, and working on it depended on the reception of this film. In August 2024, he then stated that he was happy with where he left it, and he might leave it as a trilogy after all.
• Mia Goth’s grandmother is Brazilian actress, Maria Gladys. In Brazil, they promoted this film by having “the granddaughter of Brazilian actress Maria Gladys” succeed Goth’s name whenever it was mentioned, even though Gladys had nothing to do with the film.
• The filmmakers decided to go old-school for the production. The film was made the same way as it would have been in the 1980s. For instance, using the same camera equipment as back then, and avoiding modern trickery when filming.
• After Maxine finished her audition and walked past all the other actresses waiting in line, there’s a sign that reads “X Factor”, which was said in both X and Pearl as the special quality sought for in an actress.

• Ti West’s wife, Alison Wonderland makes a cameo as a DJ in the Neon Hearts club that Maxine lures John Labat (Kevin Bacon) to.
• One of Kevin Turen’s posthumous producer credits after his passing on November 12, 2023.
• Leon (Moses Sumney) names Jamie Lee Curtis, John Travolta, Demi Moore, and Brooke Shields as celebrities who got their start in horror films. Those films were Halloween (Curtis), Carrie (Travolta), Parasite (Moore), and Alice, Sweet Alice (Shields). Kevin Bacon, who appears in this film, can also be added to this list as one of his breakout roles was in Friday The 13th.
• While Maxine and Elizabeth (Elizabeth Debicki) were on the Psycho movie set, Elizabeth says, “Congratulations, you made it to the belly of the beast”. In the film Psycho II, Meg Tilly’s character can be seen reading a book called In The Belly Of The Beast.
• Mia Goth admitted that she believed that the story for this film was the best out of the three movies.

• For the fictional film, The Puritan, the tagline reads, “Her faith will be tested… Her soul will be tormented”.
• Each of the films in this trilogy pays tribute to three different horror sub-genres: Slasher Horror (X), Psychological Horror (Pearl), and Giallo Horror (MaXXXine).
• The peep show venue, Show World was an actual Hollywood Boulevard adult venue in the late 1970s and 1980s. However, it was an adult cinema known as The Cave Theatre, not a peep show at the time.
• To help immerse herself into the setting of the film, Mia Goth listened to ‘80s music, such as Blondie, but it didn’t give her the energy that she needed. She switched over to Kendrick Lamar, J. Cole, and Eminem to give herself more confidence.
• The dance that Young Maxine (Charley Rowan McCain) performs for her father is the exact choreography that Pearl performs for her audition in Pearl.

• The Hollywood star that Maxine puts her cigarette out on is Theda Bara’s. Theda was who Pearl named her alligator after in Pearl.
• When discussing having the famous Psycho house in the film, Ti West stated, “In X, they had a little conversation about Psycho. Psycho loomed over that movie. You could call it a slasher movie but also one of the great horror movies of all time. When I was making this movie, I was like, ‘Well, if she’s going to be on a movie backlot, where could they go?’ I knew it was there, and I wrote it into the script. I didn’t think about getting permission or anything like that. Then it was a bit of a panic because, ‘What if they say no? I don’t have a backup.’ But the Alfred Hitchcock estate said yes. It was very surreal to go there and film it and not be making Psycho. That was part of the charm of the movie and of the trilogy as a whole: to embrace the artifice of Hollywood.”
• At the end of the film, when Maxine was in her trailer, she cut her cocaine with her SAG card and snorted it with a $100 bill, showing she really made it a long way from the beginning of X, where she cut her cocaine with a piece of cardboard and snorted it with a $2 bill.
• John’s death was foreshadowed in a few lines of dialogue. When he first met Maxine, he tells her that living with her guilt would “crush him to pieces”. Later, Elizabeth told Maxine to “squash” whatever is going on in her life that may interfere with making The Puritan II. Maxine does exactly was Elizabeth says and has John completely crushed by a car compactor in the junkyard.
• The house in the Hollywood hills where Maxine finds her dad is the same house from the film, Body Double. The house itself was located nowhere near the Hollywood sign and the backyard scenes were shot at a different location.

• When Molly (Lily Collins) talks to Maxine outside of her trailer, she says that actresses have to stick together. Mitsy says something similar to Pearl in Pearl, saying sisters in law have to stick together.
• The switchblade that Maxine uses to cut herself free was the one she got from Buster (Zachary Mooren) when he tried to attack her with it.
• At one point, Leon compared Maxine to Marilyn Chambers, who became a star after appearing in the controversial adult film, Behind The Green Door. She later starred in the horror film, Rabid, but after that, she struggled to find mainstream success due to her background in adult films and she eventually returned to porn. Like Maxine, Chambers was also addicted to cocaine.
• While Maxine does her makeup in front of a vanity, a ceramic goose with a large amount of cocaine in it is on the desk. The goose is a possible nod to the goose that Pearl killed in the opening of Pearl.
• The film begins with a quote from Bette Davis: “In this business, until you’re known as a monster, you’re not a star”, and the film ends with Kim Carnes’ song, Bette Davis Eyes. Ti West previously told Mia Goth to watch the Bette Davis classic, What Ever Happened To Baby Jane? to prepare for her role in Pearl.

• John’s white suit and bandaged nose is a possible nod to Jack Nicholson’s appearance in Chinatown.
• The religious protester who wore the “SATAN STOLE MY DAUGHTER” shirt is meant to be the father of Lorraine Day, Jenna Ortega’s character in X.
• One of many Giallo references in this film includes having Maxine’s father, Ernest (Simon Prast) wearing black leather gloves. They are the same style gloves that the killer in Deep Red wore.
• When Elizabeth drives Maxine to the Bates Motel backlot, she sort of resembled Norman Bates. She was tall, she wore a brown coat, and she had her hair done in the style of Mother Bates’ wig.
• One of the extras on the film, James Hunter filed a lawsuit against Mia Goth for battery. He claimed that she intentionally kicked his head while filming a scene and accosted him when he later tried to go to the bathroom. While Goth and Ti West denied these claims, Hunter also filed a suit for wrongful termination after he was fired the next day. As of 2026, the case is still ongoing.