MaXXXine director Ti West reveals how ‘great, rich, aesthetic’ films like Body Double inspired his latest slasher flick

Ti West’s horror trilogy concludes with the highly anticipated film MaXXXine!

The director, who didn’t plan on a trilogy when he created the first film, X, has spoken about the inspiration behind the now-famous horror franchise. The Mia Goth-starring slasher follows Maxine’s journey as she sets out to leave her violent past behind and seek fame in Hollywood.

Ti West Talks the Inspiration Behind MaXXXine

The third and final film in Ti West’s horror franchise is set in 1985, immersed in the history and iconography of that era. In a conversation with Variety, the director was asked if he drew inspiration from the previous films for MaXXXine’s aesthetic.

“When you’re trying to recreate the aesthetic of the ’80s, you’re also re-creating a sense of the media of the time,” he said. While recreating that era is less specific, films like Body Double have proven useful.

“Body Double is a really great, rich, aesthetic film that takes place in Hollywood, behind the scenes of filmmaking,” he added. Given that MaXXXine has a similar film within a film, Body Double is a great film to come up with creative ideas.

He also mentioned other films as Hollywood time capsules, from Vice Squad to Angel to Foxes, because they showcase the glamorous and unglamorous sides of Los Angeles. While the latest horror film doesn’t replicate those classics, it retains the spirit of that era.

How did Ti West imagine the end of his horror trilogy?

Although Ti West’s trilogy has become one of the most successful horror franchises, it wasn’t what he originally intended. “I had written X as a single film,” he recalls. However, he had ideas for the prequel Pearl and the final sequel.

He pitched A24 Studios the idea of ​​doing X, followed by XX and XXX. “But the question was, can we do ‘Pearl’ first; see if anyone likes those movies, and then we’ll talk about MaXXXine,” he told Variety.

So when the films were successful, he hoped to be able to immediately move into pre-production on the final film, and the studios made that happen. “I wrote MaXXXine in post-production on ‘Pearl,’ with the hope that we would jump right into it, and that we would do it through A24,” he added.

MaXXXine is currently available in theaters.