Part Three - MaXXXine

Maxine is now a popular porn star in 1985 LA attempting to make her breakout from the industry. She finds herself cast in a horror movie, and while she’d like to focus on the filming, her friends in the adult entertainment industry are getting struck down in brutal killings by the night stalker. Their deaths include satanic symbols of all sorts and slasher violence. The killer turns out to be her own father, a Southern preacher, and she and a couple cops have to take them down in bloody violence. She ends up shooting her father in the head. Maxine’s journey through X and MaXXXine continues to illustrate the horror Burke describes, from Maxine crushing a man’s testicles on camera with her heels to her stalker private detective being crushed in a car and eaten by dogs. Both a bullet to the head ensuing a violent explosion and the detective’s bloody death evoke psychological sublimity in the mind of the viewer. In seeing this imagery they are consumed with the idea of their own mortality. Burke states,"Whatever therefore is terrible, with regard to sight, is sublime,” and there is nothing these scenes could be but true terror.
In MaXXXine full exposure to sex scenes is given to the viewer, something that is often not shown in movies. This shock from seeing sex, which is not often fully depicted in films, is sublime in itself, but there is another level. The taboo of pornography gives power to the movie. It is something that can ruin one’s life, exposing them as a pervert. This is the sublime power of the trilogy, and the characters in the movie. Not only is it seeing and finding attraction to the taboo focus of the film that makes it sublime, but also fear of retribution. All of Maxine’s co-workers in the adult film industry are murdered in creative explicit ways as retribution. This inflicts a sublime fear within the viewer. It draws them in, as if they were complicit to the wrongdoings of the actresses.