For the last few years, Ti West hasn’t stopped thinking about the horror villains Pearl and Maxine. Since 2020, the writer and director has been fully immersed in the genre-spanning franchise that started with the ’70s slasher flick X and continued with the technicolor prequel Pearl, which were filmed back-to-back in New Zealand during the pandemic and released in 2022. Now things culminate with the premiere of the series’ third act, the very ’80s thriller Maxxxine. It’s been an intense process that has meant West hasn’t had much time for anything else. “It’s all such a blur at this point,” he tells The Verge. “It’s been seven days a week, 12 hours a day, for four and a half years.”
The franchise was born, in part, out of practicality....
