Martin Scorsese made headlines recently with a review of Ti West’sPearlthat he sent to the studio responsible, A24, and was subsequently published on/Film, in which he praised the film as “a wild, mesmerizing, deeply – and I mean deeply – disturbing 102 minutes” that left him “so unsettled that I had trouble getting to sleep.” A prequel to West’s other 2022 horror gem,X,Pearlfills in the backstory of its eponymous slasher long before her sex life dried up and her bloodlust intensified. As both a perfect companion piece toXand a truly unnerving horror film in its own right,Pearlis a perfect prequel.
As with any franchise expansion,Pearlplays on the audience’s familiarity with the original movie. It continuesX’s exploration of the adult film industryas a charismatic young cinema projectionist shows Pearl one of the first pornos ever made,A Free Ride, in an attempt to seduce her.Pearlalso brings back the farm’s creepy basement full of dark secrets. InX, this basement contained a captive Lorraine and a beaten and bloodied sex slave; inPearl, it’s where Pearl hides the bodies of everyone she murders, including her own parents.Xfans also get to see the return of Theda, the ravenous alligator that Pearl feeds her victims to. But the prequel doesn’t use those familiar elements as a crutch. Viewers who haven’t seenXwill still get plenty out ofPearl. The porno, the basement, and the alligator aren’t just a nod and a wink toXfans; they all serve the story at hand. The porno represents Pearl coming out of her shell and embracing her most sinful desires, the corpses piling up in the basement symbolize the guilt weighing on Pearl’s conscience, and the alligator – named after a famous movie star – rounds out this portrait of a wannabe performer stuck on a farm in the middle of nowhere.
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The best prequels use the inevitability of fate as a dramatic tool. When a character’s future is predetermined, storytellers can have fun taking their past in unexpected directions.The adorable nine-year-old podracer inThe Phantom Menaceis destined to become Darth Vader. The plucky young attorney inBetter Call Saulis destined to represent the most notorious drug lord in New Mexico. The ambitious Italian immigrant in the flashback portions ofThe Godfather Part IIis destined to become a fearsome mafia boss. And the starry-eyed farmhand inPearlis destined to become a sexually repressed serial killer. Pearl spends the movie longing to leave the farm behind and become a star, but viewers ofXknow that her dreams will never come true and she’ll end up spending her entire life on that farm. This brings a tragic angle to a character with precious few redeeming qualities.
Pearlworks as much more than justan extension ofX; it’s also a standout horror film in its own right with its own style and story structure that doesn’t rely onXto be enjoyable. Without knowing the endgame ofX, audiences can still watchPearlas a sinister character study of a farmhand with overbearing parents and a husband at war who snaps and becomes a cold-blooded murderer. Cinematographer Eliot Rockett captured some unforgettable shots forPearl, from an ominous oner tracking a fleeing sister-in-law from the porch out onto the road as Pearl calmly picks up an axe and follows her to the sustained final close-up of Pearl smiling at her husband Howard when he returns from the frontlines to find an even more shocking sight at the dinner table than anything he saw in any warzone.
The entries of most franchises, fromStar Warsto the Marvel Cinematic Universe tofellow horror series likeHalloween, are all cut from the same tonal cloth. ButPearlisn’t justX2.0; it has a cinematic language of its own, evoking the Golden Age of Hollywood with bright colors, catchy melodies, and a romanticized view of stardom.Xhas been described asBoogie NightsmeetsThe Texas Chain Saw Massacre. It’s a gruesome ‘70s-set, ‘70s-style slasher about a sexually frustrated elderly couple killing off the cast and crew of a porno being shot on their property.Pearldoesn’t just rehashX’s unique sensibility. The prequel develops a sensibility of its own that’s just as horrifying, if not more so. West gavePearlan old-fashioned filmmaking style with classical opening title design, dynamic scene transitions, and a whimsical musical score juxtaposed against the horrors on-screen.
Like all great prequels,Pearlenriches the original work. Just asBreaking Badis even more compelling withthe context provided inBetter Call Saul,Xis even more compelling with the context provided inPearl. Fans can go back and rewatchXwith a deeper understanding of Pearl’s psychology, and audiences who haven’t seenXcan watchPearlfirst and sympathize with the titular killer by seeing where her murderous motivations came from before witnessing her darkest massacre in her twilight years inX.
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