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Maxine will not accept a life she does not deserve (or a shabby apartment on Hollywood Boulevard either)! “MaXXXine,” the end to the “X” trilogy of horror films from writer and director Ti West, sees Maxine Minx relocate to Los Angeles to pursue her dreams of stardom after surviving the brutal massacre of the cast and crew of “The Farmer’s Daughter” in “X.”
As the emerging starlet explores Tinseltown for the first time, West takes the opportunity to stage sequences in some of the most famous locations in the city. That includes the seedy Hollywood Boulevard of 1980s exploitation films like “Foxes” and “Angel,” not to mention the glossier work of Brian De Palma’s “Body Double,” itself a story involving an aspiring actor, a porn star and a murderer.
West told Variety that he wanted the final movie to feel like it wasn’t contained, unlike the first two in the trilogy, which were set on a farm. He wanted to “hit all the greatest hits” of L.A., including the TCL Chinese Theatre and more.
Here’s a breakdown of the locations featured throughout “MaXXXine.”
Warner Bros.’ Stage 15
Image Credit: Justin Lubin
Maxine, trying to branch out from the porn industry and live peep shows, auditions for her first proper acting role in Elizabeth Bender’s (Elizabeth Debicki) horror sequel, “The Puritan II.” Though the filming sequences for the faux horror film take place on the Universal Studios backlot, the scream queen takes her first steps into “legitimate” acting on Warner Bros.’ Stage 15 in Burbank. The noisy opening of its sliding “elephant” door echoes the first shot of “X,” taken from inside the barn where Maxine gets her first taste of show business.
Hollywood Boulevard
Maxine’s apartment, the peep show place she works at and more locations in the film all are located on the famous — yet also infamously sleazy — Hollywood Boulevard. Extras and signage for spots offering 50 cent pizza slices and the like were used to make the street more 1980s-specific, but for the most part it looks surprisingly similar today.
West told Variety that he wanted the movie to take place in iconic, tourist-type destinations. He said although it was suggested he shoot in the L.A. suburb Monrovia and use movie magic to make it look like the iconic boulevard, it was important for the crew to shoot on the actual street.
“I wanted L.A. to play itself in the most Hollywood of ways,” West said.
Universal Studios Backlot
Image Credit: Courtesy Everett Collection
The Universal Studios backlot, located in L.A.’s Universal City, appears plenty of times throughout the horror-mystery flick. From Maxine consulting with Bender in the parking lot of the Bates Motel, to meeting the star of the first fictional “The Puritan” film, Molly Bennett (Lily Collins), to getting chased by Kevin Bacon’s private investigator John Labat into the facade of Norman Bates’ hilltop house, the vintage movie location used in Alfred Hitchcock’s 1960 horror classic gets a ton of screentime.
West told Variety that shooting at the house behind the motel created evocative imagery, and that they shot inside the actual set.
“Shooting at the ‘Psycho’ house if you’re not making a ‘Psycho’ movie, will never be an opportunity to ever happen again, cause it makes no sense,” West said. “But it happened to make sense this one time ever. To do that, I think creates a very evocative imagery.”
Hollywood Forever Cemetery
Image Credit: Courtesy Everett Collection
After Maxine’s porn-star colleagues Tabby Martin and Amber James (Halsey and Chloe Farnworth) venture to a mysterious party in the Hollywood Hills, the pair end up dead in Hollywood Forever Cemetery, with pentagrams inscribed on their skin. The cemetery is the final resting place for celebrities including Cecil B. DeMille, Judy Garland, Rudolph Valentino and many more, and aftergoing a rough patch in the 1980s and ’90s, it now also hosts movie screenings and concerts.
Two detectives (Michelle Monaghan and Bobby Cannavale) investigate their deaths and assume it’s the doing of the Night Stalker, a real serial killer who terrorized Los Angeles.
BonaVista Revolving Lounge at the Westin Bonaventure Hotel
Image Credit: Getty Images
Maxine meets Labat (Kevin Bacon), the private investigator looking into her past, for the first time at the BonaVista Revolving Lounge at the Westin Bonaventure Hotel in Downtown L.A. “MaXXXine” is the latest in an impressive line of films that were shot at the hotel, including “True Lies,” “In the Line of Fire” and “The Dark Knight Returns.”
West told Variety that originally, the scene was written to take place in the lobby of the hotel. But, after shifting to the revolving restaurant, “Getting there was hard. Getting all of the gear to the 32nd floor or whatever was a project, but once we were there, it wasn’t so bad.”
Video Rental Shop
Image Credit: Justin Lubin
Leon (Moses Sumney), Maxine’s best friend, works at an adult video store located on Hollywood Boulevard. But, West told Variety the store was nowhere near the Hollywood street: They built it on set.
He described it as an “amalgamation” of lots of video stores from the 1980s, and small parts of it, like the rewinder and special interest sections, were inspired by the local video store he went to as a kid.
“It was never specific,” West said. “It was more just trying to find some of those benchmark things that you forget about until you see them, and then they give you that authentic nostalgia.”
Check out flyers for local punk bands of the era like Black Flag and Fear plastered to the walls along Hollywood Blvd. in the movie.
Maxine’s Apartment
Maxine’s apartment, also located on Hollywood Boulevard, was inspired by the overall sleaze vibe that West wanted for the movie. He said that while it was set in the 1980s movie, it was important to have more of an urban feel rather than a suburban vibe, like classics of the era like “The Breakfast Club.”
“It’s a different perspective on the fashion and the style of the day,” West told Variety. “It’s a more gritty, urban version.”
Teddy Knight’s Office
Image Credit: Courtesy Everett Collection
Throughout the film, Maxine relies on her manager and agent, Teddy Knight (Giancarlo Esposito), for everything from career advice to taking down the private investigator coming after her. His office, a wood-paneled space, is surrounded by fictional movie posters that would be found in a B-movie mogul’s workplace, particularly during the VHS heyday of the 1980s.
“The idea was to have these kinds of posters that are indicative of the kinds of movies that he’s making,” West said of the office. “It’s less now than it used to be, but even when I first moved to L.A., when you would go on these meetings, everybody puts the slate of their movies up. When someone’s very proud of a slate of movies that other people might not be as proud of, to me that is very charming.”
Hollywood Hills Mansion
Maxine’s porn-star colleagues Tabby Martin (Halsey) and Amber James (Chloe Farnsworth), as well as her “Puritan II” co-star Molly Bennett (Lily Collins), mention a party they’ve been invited to in the Hollywood Hills. She also receives an invitation from Labat to the gathering; though such shindigs are common practice in the moviemaking industry, Maxine’s acceptance sets that stage for her final confrontation with the person (or people) threatening her entry into mainstream acting.
The conveyance she rides to get to the home, a funicular, is decidedly less commonplace – which is why West had to build one for the sequence. He explained that his inspiration was a Halloween party he went to in Benedict Canyon when he first moved to L.A., where the real fun was located in a second location.
“It was connected by a funicular,” West said. “I rode that down, and then it was a massive party. That always stuck with me. The most L.A. kind of thing is to have that.”
The Hollywood Sign
Image Credit: Getty Images
After chaos ensues at the mansion, Maxine ends up in a pursuit in the hills for the murderer, and she emerges upon the site of Hollywood’s most famous landmark, the sign bearing its name. The confrontation brings her ambitions full circle as she dispatches the person who she believed was trying to stop her from achieving stardom, but she learns may have been the person to first plant the seed in her head.
While West originally wanted to shoot the scene at the actual sign, he had to rebuild it slightly in Santa Clarita. The real sign is located on steep, hilly terrain, and the local residents are notoriously protective of the surrounding neighborhood which is often besieged by tourists.
Chinese Theatre
Image Credit: Courtesy Everett Collection
After Maxine has been through hell and back (twice!), she finally sees the premiere of her breakout role in “The Puritan II” at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre (it wasn’t yet the TCL) on Hollywood Boulevard.
West described shooting the premiere scene as “meta as it could possibly be.” He said the 97-year old theater is such a part of Hollywood lore and history and is somewhere he always wanted to have a movie premiere.
Of the premiere of “MaXXXine” June 24 at the TCL Chinese Theatre, West said: “I don’t usually sit through the movie, but I did on that night. Because to sit through the movie in a packed, 900-seat theater that’s historic, on one of the biggest screens and then to see it on screen while being in there was just very surreal and unlikely and very strange. It was certainly a bucket list for me.”
