It’s feeling like a bit of a golden age for horror films where they are more than just a vehicle for shock.

MaXXXine is the third in the trilogy by Ti West that stars Mia Goth as a small, punky porn star hero. It doesn’t matter if you haven’t seen the others (Pearl (2022) and X (2020)) as it is so firmly rooted in very familiar horror tropes that you’ll know exactly what’s happening.

Goth is Maxine Minx, a reasonably successful porn star and adult entertainer who just wants to be famous. She has come from an ultra religious family – this will be important later – and gets what feels like a big break in a legitimate horror movie, albeit a sequel.

She is pugnacious and determined but around her 1985 Los Angeles is in a panic about a serial killer, the night stalker, as well as the satanic panic where conservatives thought that rock music and horror films were corrupting their children.

This means that Maxine has a lot of dodgy things going on around her that seem to be getting in the way of her big break. There’s a shadowy man dressed all in black leather who seems to be killing off sex workers. There’s a delightfully loathsome Kevin Bacon as a private detective set to track Maxine down, and there are two pesky detectives who suspect that Maxine knows more than she is letting on.

In reality the plot doesn’t matter so much, you will get swept along by the music video/B grade horror vibe, Mia Goth’s face and irrepressible determination and some delightfully camp moments of gore. There are some memorable scenes – the one where Maxine deals with her 6° of Kevin Bacon springs to mind.

I’m not sure that this will stick with me for the plot, most characters other than Maxine seem to be just catalysts for her story without much depth. I’ll remember it for the vibe though, and Maxine’s freckled face as she shoots someone in the head.