The Big Picture

Ti West’s
MaXXXine
and David Robert Mitchell’s
Under the Silver Lake
explore Hollywood’s dark underbelly, with mysterious killers and conspiracies plaguing ambitious protagonists.
Both films showcase violence and paranoia, with the true antagonists and motivations differing between the two.
Despite differences, both films reveal the darkness beneath Hollywood’s glamorous facade, making them perfect companions in exploring the sinister side of fame and ambition.

Ti West’s new A24 slasher MaXXXine brings X protagonist Maxine Minx (Mia Goth) back to our silver screens. This time, the emerging starlet is pursuing fame in the context of the Night Stalker’s real-life 1985 Los Angeles reign of terror. As Maxine’s friends start to drop (seemingly thanks to the Night Stalker), she begins to receive suspicious communications from a mysterious source. Discontented with the prospect of involving the police, Maxineundergoes her own investigation to get to the bottom of it all. The danger of her investigation follows her through a variety of Los Angeles landmarks, from Mann’s Chinese Theater (as it was named in the era) to studio backlots and the top of the Hollywood Hills. The film is a perfect companion to another A24 metafiction about shady happenings in the heart of Hollywood… David Robert Mitchell’s A24 stoner-noir Under the Silver Lake.

Like MaXXXine, Under the Silver Lake similarly features a Los Angeles both under the threat of a mysterious killer (here the Dog Killer) and plagued by the disappearances of young women (albeit with a very different resolution). The film follows Sam (Andrew Garfield), a protagonist nowhere near as ambitious as Maxine, until he falls for (read: becomes obsessed with) his new neighbor Sarah (Riley Keough). When Sarah disappears, Sam goes on a journey that takes him into the deep underbelly of Los Angeles in obsessive pursuit of the truth. It’s an engaging, sometimes surreal tripfueled by subtle Hollywood nostalgia and growing paranoia, the other side to MaXXXine’s own exploration of Hollywood excess.

Under the Silver Lake Sam, a disenchanted young man, finds a mysterious woman swimming in his apartment’s pool one night. The next morning, she disappears. Sam sets off across LA to find her, and along the way he uncovers a conspiracy far more bizarre.Release Date June 21, 2018 Director David Robert Mitchell Runtime 140

Beware the Dog Killer in ‘Under The Silver Lake’

In Under the Silver Lake, it’s clear from moment one that something’s not quite right with Sam. He’s a slacker and a charmer (it’s Andrew Garfield after all) who passes time by spying on his somewhat nudist neighbor next door. He’s weirdly preoccupied with the Dog Killer, wanting to contact the author of a local comic about the fiend, and (also strangely) carries dog treats around despite not actually having a dog. When he leaves Sarah’s apartment after watching the Marilyn Monroe classic How to Marry a Millionaire, Sam catches a set of kids vandalizing the neighborhood cars, including scratching a vulgar image on his own. It’s a nice car, sure, but Sam attacks the kids–punching them repeatedly, and even kicking one on the ground, and you can see the rage in his face… it’s a shockingly violent pivot for the character, followed by a surreal and violent dream where a Sarah-like person chews a corpse while barking like a dog. The film never makes it transparently clear, but one popular theory is that Sam himself may actually be the dreaded Dog Killer.

Sam and Sarah had plans the next day, but to his surprise, he finds her gone without a trace, sparking a paranoid investigation that leads Sam to trendy rooftop performances, screenings at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery, subterranean tunnels, secret codes in video game maps and mass media, and a strange cult among extremely wealthy people that’s connected Shooting Star Escorts, an escort service promising to connect its wealthy customers to “Hollywood’s Up and Coming Ingenues!” Sarah was connected to Shooting Star Escorts, and it’s the reason she disappeared off the face of the Earth. If any of this sounds familiar, it’s because it shares a clear kinship to what’s really going on in MaXXXine, though a sort of inverse version of that film’s events.

Two Tales of A Terrorized, Conspiracy-Ruled Los Angeles

There are a number of similarities that run through the heart of both Under the Silver Lake and MaXXXine. Stylistically, both films are somewhat unusual noir films at their heart, each simultaneously critical of and nostalgic about classic Hollywood. MaXXXine is a tale of a young starlet looking to get her big mainstream break, but while she loves the limelight, there’s always a downside to the dream and a seediness that pervades Hollywood. When we discover the details around the film’s true antagonist(s), the only reason young women are victimized is because of their vulnerability in 1985 Los Angeles. Similarly, Under the Silver Lake’s journey into Hollywood showcases a lot of classic entertainment, posters, iconography, and young, excited, hopeful starlets, but behind the glamor is a cult of wealthy men who contract with an extremely shady escort service for nefarious purposes. There’s also the issue of a genuine, decades-long conspiracy to infest all pop culture with pacifying messages (a plan right out of John Carpenter’s They Live), so something’s clearly rotten in Hollywood.

Each film showcases a protagonist with a penchant for violence going on a rogue investigation into Hollywood’s terrorized underbelly, discovering a conspiracy that manipulates sex workers, serves the wealthy, and attempts to use the media to disempower the masses. At the same time, there are relevant differences between the films. Maxine doesn’t kill from some malicious drive to do so (unlike whatever drives Sam to kill dogs, if he indeed is the Dog Killer). Rather, Maxine’s ambition puts herself in the crosshairs of dangerous people, and she won’t blink twice before killing her way through those obstacles. Moreover, the conspiracies of Under the Silver Lake are orchestrated by powerful cultural players in Hollywood towards their own self-aggrandizement (not to give too much away). In MaXXXine (again, not to give too much away), very different motivations are at play. The nature of these films’ ultimate antagonists and the fate of their young women may have differences, but both films are excellent A24 hybrid-noirs that reveal the darkness beneath Hollywood’s bright marquee lights. X may be MaXXXine’s immediate precursor, but Under the Silver Lake is the perfect flipside to its murderous neon-lit coin.

Under the Silver Lake is available to rent on Amazon in the U.S.

Rent on Amazon