In 1985 Los Angeles, amidst the Night Stalker murders, Maxine Minx successfully auditions for the lead in a new horror film, The Puritan II, despite all of her previous film credits being in adult films. After sharing the news with her friend Leon and colleague Amber James, the latter invites Maxine to a party in the Hollywood Hills, which she declines. Maxine goes to work at her second job, a live peep show, where a mysterious, leather-clad figure watches with anger. She meets another adult entertainer, Tabby Martin, who also invites her to the party that Amber mentioned, but Maxine declines again. As she walks home she is followed by a figure dressed as Buster Keaton, who corners her in an alleyway, brandishing a switchblade. Maxine pulls a gun on him, makes him strip, puts the gun in his mouth and forces him to perform fellatio on it, before stomping on and chopping off his testicles with her boot.
The leather-clad figure leaves a police evidence VHS tape containing the violent film Maxine and her now-deceased friends had attempted to make six years prior.[a] Upon watching it, she asks a confused Leon to find out where it came from. Meanwhile, in the Hollywood Hills, Amber and Tabby are killed and have their bodies branded with Satanic symbols. Maxine is invited to meet with John Labat, a private investigator who informs her that her previous crimes will be revealed unless she meets with his employer, telling her she must appear at a specific address on Starlight Drive later that night or risk repercussions. LAPD detectives Williams and Torres question Maxine about Tabby and Amber, but she refuses to answer them. She later sees Labat following her and attacks him, warning him to stay away from her.
Maxine confides in her agent, Teddy Knight, who agrees to help her. Ignoring Labat's demands, Maxine begins learning the script for The Puritan II. Meanwhile, Leon is slaughtered in his video store by the mysterious, leather-clad figure. On the set of The Puritan II, Maxine meets the star of the first film, Molly Bennett, who mentions a similar party in the Hollywood Hills. Soon after, Labat, angered by Maxine attacking him the previous day, chases her across the Universal Studios Lot with a gun before being caught and escorted away by security. Maxine tricks Labat into following her, during which she, Knight, and her friend Shepard Turei ambush Labat, and subsequently trap him inside of his car to be crushed by a junkyard compressor.
Maxine visits the address Labat gave her, which leads her to a house in the Hollywood Hills. She finds Molly's dismembered body inside a suitcase and learns the murders have been committed by her estranged father, a televangelist named Ernest Miller, with the assistance of the fundamentalist members of his ministry. Miller reveals he and his followers have been filming the murders to create a snuff film intended to expose Hollywood for what he sees as its sinful and corrupting nature. Thinking he can still "save" his daughter, Miller has his followers tie Maxine to a tree for an impromptu exorcism, which he also films. Detectives Torres and Williams interrupt the ceremony and cause a shootout, killing Miller's cohorts, injuring Miller, and giving Maxine time to free herself before the detectives are mortally wounded while pursuing Miller. Armed with a shotgun, Maxine eventually confronts her father at the Hollywood sign but is interrupted by a police helicopter.
Maxine envisions herself as a celebrity credited for helping stop her father, attending the premiere of The Puritan II and revealing in an interview that the film's director, Elizabeth Bender, will be directing a biographical film about her. Returning to reality, she shoots her father, telling him he gave her what she needed – divine intervention. A month later, Maxine continues her work on The Puritan II, hoping her success will never end.
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