Pearl: Ti West's Post-Modern Slasher Trilogy Reaches Its Bloody Mid-Point
By Thom Ernst
Rating: A-
One of the first movies to break out of the 2022 TIFF gates and into regular theatres is Pearl, director Ti West's second in a trilogy that began with his 70s-influenced slasher X.
West is one of the best current horror genre filmmakers. And Pearl is one of his best, an origin story that answers the question presented in X (namely, why was that old woman so darned angry?).
Straight outta TIFF’s Midnight Madness, beware of farm girls with pitchforks.
If you haven't seen X, don't let that stop you from seeing Pearl. Although having seen the first is bound to add some level of appreciation, the two films work as well separately as they do together. But where X takes place in the 70s (a tribute to both slashers of the era and the pornography industry), Pearl takes place in 1918.
In a role that is certain to be remembered, Mia Goth plays Pearl, a young girl with serious pitch-fork issues who is stuck on her parent's farm. Her father (Matthew Sunderland) is confined to a wheelchair, and her mother (Tandi Wright) comes across as cold and unforgiving.
But all Pearl wants is a chance to dance in a chorus line like she sees the girls do in the movies. The only person who seems to understand this is her sister-in-law, Misty (Emma Jenkins-Purro)
Pearl thinks her chance has finally come when a cool, attractive bohemian type (David Corenswet), who runs the projection booth at the local movie theatre, invites her to a private late-night screening.
Most audiences know that private late-night screenings in projection booths often don't go as planned. And when things don't go right for Pearl, she tends to take matters into her own hands—that same hand gripping an axe.
What begins as a weird tribute to The Wizard of Oz becomes a genuinely creepy horror. West chooses deliberate methodic movements rather than jump scares to terrify the audience, and the film is all the better for it. And he never lets loose of an underlying sense of humour that is as clever as it is demented.
Pearl harkens to horror greats from Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho to Tobe Hooper's Eaten Alive. I have only one prior request before you see Pearl; don't leave during the credits. Goth's performance verges on brilliant, reminiscent of a young Sissy Spacek if Spacek was bat-shit crazy, and she nails it in the final scene.
A third installment has been announced, called MaXXXine. I'm already counting the minutes.
Pearl. Directed by Ti West. Stars Mia Goth, Emma Jenkins-Purro, David Corenswet, Matthew Sunderland and Tandi Wright. Pearl opens in theatres Friday, September 16.