Pearl (2022), directed by Ti West, stars Mia Goth, Emma Jenkins-Purro, David Corenswet, Tandi Wright, Matthew Sutherland, and Alistair Sewell. This a prequel to X (2022) that follows a young Pearl (Goth) while her husband Howard (Sewell) is overseas fighting in the First World War. Pearl is forced to stay on the family farm and help her overbearingly strict mother (Wright) care for their disabled father/husband (Sutherland). Her mother constantly scolds her and refuses to allow her to do anything she wants, including a dance audition that could be Pearl’s ticket to stardom. Day to day, all Pearl can dream about is becoming a Hollywood star and leaving her working-class life behind. On top of that, she constantly fantasizes about other men, eventually struggling to stay faithful to Howard. This repression of everything she desires in life leads Pearl to eventually crack, with foes as well as friends being caught in her path of bloody retribution. 

Goth is once again fantastic as the film’s lead, the script allowing her to more deeply explore certain aspects of the character that were left vague in the original. X hinted heavily at both Maxxine and Pearl being reflections of one another, only age separating the two. Pearl hammers home this aspect by presenting the younger version of Pearl as having similar desires to Maxxine, she just isn’t allowed to express them. Although it’s ground that X already explored quite efficiently, it’s nice that this trilogy has a clear overarching theme: Complete oppression of one’s desires can drive a person crazy (literally). That being said, the themes are so well-balanced that the argument could be made that giving in to one’s desires completely can likewise drive a person crazy. You can read this from multiple angles on a thematic level, and it works equally well. By combining Maxxine’s youth and Pearl’s killer insanity from X, Goth provides her most impressive as well as most terrifying performance in the series. When the character begins to unravel in the third act, it’s pretty much a jaw-dropping horror performance. 

David Corenswet is particularly charming as the local projectionist who becomes Pearl’s love interest while Howard is away. There’s a sense of natural charisma to the character that is oddly compelling. It’s no wonder he was cast as the titular character in James Gunn’s upcoming Superman (2025). I also enjoyed that the script never felt the need to paint his character as either someone we should root for or root against. If we were to truly know the character’s moral standing, it would slightly hint at his ultimate fate, therefore losing a lot of tension in terms of outcomes.     

The script is very smart to feature a character like Mitzie (Jenkins-Purro) in the sense that she acts as a true friend to Pearl throughout most of the film. Without this character, Pearl’s eventual breakdown would seem justified (almost) when considering how horribly her mother treats her. Mitzie being a true rock for her friend takes away any excuse/justification for going off the edge. It makes it clear that at the end of the day, Pearl is cuckoo regardless of her support systems.

The film works wonderfully as a throwback to Golden Age cinema, but the thing is, genre films like this were never released during the Golden Age. This makes Pearl’s tone and visual style feel truly original. It’s two flavors that I’ve never seen blended and it’s very exciting. The score is likewise a throwback to the golden age and ends up giving the film a kind of scary clown effect – everything is positive and colorful on the surface, but you can tell something sinister is lurking beneath. Like the previous film, there are also a ton of subtle yet irresistible visual callbacks to classic films that include but are not limited to The Wizard of Oz (1939), Peeping Tom (1960), Charlotte’s Web (1973), Psycho (1960), and The Shining (1980). 

The film is thematically dense like its predecessor, exploring themes such as how far one will go to feel loved, doing what you want vs. what others want, and the general idea that sex and love are not the same thing. The thing is, although these ideas a more deeply explored, they still come off as a bit redundant. I just wish it could have explored at least one idea that truly separates it thematically from X. 

Overall, this is a fantastic horror prequel that could work perfectly if someone would choose to watch this before X. My only complaints with the film are its retreading of themes and the fact that it inherently suffers from a bit of “prequelitis.” Besides that, this is an efficient character study/slasher experience that wraps up with a beautiful bow. Does it feel fully necessary? No. Was my third donut necessary? No. Did I enjoy it? Hell yeah. B+