By: Ryan Dailey
Very rarely, especially in the horror genre does a sequel come along and not only compliment the film that came before it, but completely re-contextualizes the original. This is quite the feat, since the film that came before was the well-received and brilliantly written and directed, X.
Pearl is set at the end of World War 1, in 1918. It was during the Spanish Flu pandemic that killed hundreds of thousands in The United States alone.
Mia Goth reprises her role from X as Pearl, only decades younger than she was in the first film. Pearl’s husband is serving overseas, leaving his bride to deal with her autocratic mother, Ruth, (Tandi Wright) and her incapacitated father, (Mathew Sunderland.) Pearl is like many other girls from not only this era, but every epoch that follows. She wants to leave her life of mediocrity in rural America and find fame and fortune as a dancer. Her chance comes to her in the form of a musical review for her church.
Pearl’s excitement to be in the limelight is matched only by her fury and libido. The young protagonist is quick to kill her farm animal friends she was carrying conversations with just moments before. And with no outlet for her sexual frustrations, she finds another use for the farm’s scarecrows.
Pearl becomes close to film projectionist,(David Corenswet) who introduces the young girl to the world of early, underground pornography.
Pearl is not only a great stand alone film, but fits into the world of X perfectly, making the first film even better retroactively. It has been far too long since Hollywood has put out anything original and entertaining and the movie-going public has been subjected to hours upon hours of cookie-cutter, poorly written and acted “cinema.”
A24 an Ti West and Mia Goyh, who co-wrote the script to Pearl, have given the horror movie community two great gifts with Pearl and X.
Pearl is in theaters as of this review.