Pearl is a great character study that dives deeper in the stakes that an individual will go to attain success. It is unquestionable that the main question people will ask is, does it live up to X? While I do think it is a good film that I thoroughly enjoyed, it does not overtake its predecessor and that is completely okay. They are two entirely different movies but achieve their goals brilliantly.

This film is the textbook definition of a slow burn. The movie drags on and continues to provide this eerie tension as the viewer knows what the end result of this tragic film will be, but still... read the rest.

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"Pearl may be a prequel to X, but Ti West turns this slasher into an incredibly complex character study represented - and co-written (!) - by Mia Goth.

The new star of the horror genre deepens the protagonist Pearl, exploring her tremendous desire to fulfill her dream of wanting to become something more than a mere farm girl, including a mesmerizing monologue of nearly ten uninterrupted minutes, where raw, insane, wholly genuine emotion of the character comes across in a fascinating manner... read the rest.

Despite quite a characterful effort from Mia Goth as the title character here, I wasn't really very impressed with this film. She lives on a farm whilst her young husband is off fighting on the Somme. She shares her life with her Germanic, rather authoritarian, mother "Ruth" (Tandi Wright) and her profoundly disabled father who cannot speak and who is entirely dependent on these two women. "Pearl" longs to escape. On one of her occasional visits to town to collect her father's laudanum, she encounters the local projectionist (David Corenswet) who shows her a (quite racy) film and suggests that... read the rest.

By: Louisa Moore / www.ScreenZealots.com

The strange and unusual “Pearl,” a prequel to writer / director Ti West‘s “X”, is a different kind of slasher film. Creating an origin story for the title villain, the film tells the history of a farm girl dreamer with a serious mean streak. It’s a horror movie that’s unlike any other, a candy-colored, nightmarish dream world of lofty ambitions, brutal violence, and bloody murder.

Pearl (Mia Goth) is trapped on her family’s isolated farm. She dutifully performs her barn chores and tends to her ailing, wheelchair-bound father (Matthew Sunderland... read the rest.