An NPR member station
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

"MaXXXine" & "Longlegs"

From left: Mia Goth in MaXXXine (2024); Maika Monroe in Longlegs (2024).
MaXXXine, Access Entertainment/Motel Mojave/A24, 2024. Longlegs, C2 Motion Picture Group/Oddfellows Entertainment/Range Media Partners/Saturn Films/Traffic./Neon, 2024.
From left: Mia Goth in MaXXXine (2024); Maika Monroe in Longlegs (2024).

Who among us, when as a child, didn’t at least once feel chills run down our spine as we walked alone, at night, along some dark hallway? On this week’s show, Dan Webster, Nathan Weinbender, and Mary Pat Treuthart discuss a pair of movies that are designed to re-create that feeling. The first is MaXXXine, the third installment in writer-director Ti West’s so-called X series. The other is Longlegs, a film by Oz Perkins that stars Nicolas Cage as a kind of demonic serial killer.

Related Content
  • “Longlegs” features Nicolas Cage once again playing a character who is less scary than merely strange, Dan Webster says in his review.
  • With its buzzy marketing, “Longlegs” has been an unexpected horror hit. Nathan Weinbender says that it’s a stylishly made and ultimately promising nightmare that loses steam as it goes along and has to explain its plot.
  • The horror franchise that began with "X" and "Pearl" is now a trilogy. Director Ti West and star Mia Goth return to that sleazy world with "MaXXXine" but Nathan Weinbender says it’s too unfocused and overburdened with film references to stack up to its predecessors.
  • Right on the heels of the horror hit “X” comes its prequel “Pearl,” which is currently available on VOD. Nathan Weinbender says the film is even better than its predecessor.
  • Movie Reviews
    Nathan Weinbender reviews "X"