Martin Scorsese may not be a horror filmmaker but he loves a good scare. That’s why he’s been praising one of the modern Masters of Horror, Ti West, throughout his career.
Now that West has crafted the MaXXXine, the end of his Mia Goth-led trilogy of films, Scorsese is back to praise the new school filmmaker for keeping things old school.
The legendary filmmaker’s love affair with West’s work seems to date back to his breakout, The Innkeepers. “I thought, OK, I want to see everything this guy does.”
From there, we got the 2022 praise of Pearl with a letter to the studio and West: “I was enthralled, then disturbed, then so unsettled that I had trouble getting to sleep. But I couldn’t stop watching.”
Now, in an interview with The New York Times, Scorsese gushed about the epic love letter to the era of Hollywood filmmaking:
“The first, X, is “the ’70s, the slasher era;” Pearl is “’50s melodrama in vivid, saturated color;” MaXXXine is “’80s Hollywood, rancid, desperate.” They are, Scorsese wrote, “three linked stories set within three different moments in movie culture, reflecting back on the greater culture.” By smuggling thoroughly modern ideas into films that were also steeped in the aesthetics of the past, Scorsese thought, West had done “something bold and thoroughly cinematic.”
Scorsese has always had an interesting relationship with the horror genre; both Cape Fear and Shutter Island are tinged with horror elements, but the filmmaker has never made a straight-up horror film. He’s praised the genre and filmmakers throughout his iconic career, and it seems like Ti West is one of Scorsese’s modern favorites, alongside Ari Aster.
MaXXXine is now playing in cinemas. Check out our video review here…