Summer Horror A-Side / B-Side Split – Side A: MaXXXine
As summer winds down, Sam is here with a double-feature of 2024 horror scores, beginning with Tyler Bates’s score for the finale of the X Trilogy: MaXXXine. Tune in next week to see what other horrors await…
Listening to the score for Ti West’s trilogy-topper MaXXXine is like playing musical “Where’s Waldo?”—except instead of searching for an elusive, bespectacled proto-hipster, I’m scouring its cues for sonic clues pointing to genre film soundtracks of decades past. As a ‘70s and ‘80s horror head, it’s a game I rather enjoy.
Over its B-movie-sanctioned 44-minute runtime, composer Tyler Bates’s mix of crisp percussion, eerie sax, wailing vocals (once again courtesy of Chelsea Wolfe), sinister synths, and thick bass lines had me mentally noting a flurry of grindhouse-era references. With tracks evoking everything from Halloween and Escape from New York (“Poolside Confrontation”), Goblin’s oeuvre of Tenebre, Deep Red, and Phenomena (“Backlot Chase”), Friday the 13th’s iconic “ch ch ch ah ah ah” whispers (“The Night Stalker”), the soundtrack to Michael Mann’s Manhunter (“A Harrowing Experience”), and the original Maniac (“Show World”), MaXXXine’s tracklist feels more like a rundown of my favorites list on Letterboxd.
While Bates offers plenty of fun, nostalgic winks that turned me into the Leo DiCaprio pointing-at-the-TV meme, he does so while impressively avoiding being a straight-up copycat composer. This became especially clear after revisiting his previous work on West’s X film series. Re-listening to the scores from X and Pearl, Bates’s sonic approach—one that tastefully combines homage with his own uniquely sparse approach to instrumentation and composition—remains remarkably consistent across the franchise, just with different era-appropriate ingredients sprinkled in. Notably, Chelsea Wolfe’s vocals on X and again on MaXXXine do significant heavy lifting to anchor the scores with a fittingly unsettling vocal motif, one which serves as a perfect accomplice to Mia Goth’s unhinged central performance as Maxine Minx. All in all, I found MaXXXine’s score to be a more compelling and thoughtful blend of genre nostalgia and contemporary craft than the film itself. For a movie specifically referencing genre films from the late ‘70s and ‘80s, it will be no surprise to fans of the era that the score ultimately steals the spotlight and becomes the true star of the show.
About the Author: Hey, I’m Sam. I like violent movies with synth scores and listening to library music on the beach. My perfect idea for a date is taking a trip to 1970s Italy where I can stumble into a stylish murder mystery involving a black-gloved killer featuring music by Ennio Morricone. I live in Vancouver, B.C. and think too hard about what I write on my Letterboxd. Twitter: @mondosammi