Earlier this year, Ti West (director of The House of the Devil) delivered X to the masses. Texas Chain Saw Massacre meets the cusp of the home video market for pornography – which you may remember plays a part in the story. My previous sentence was a typical “pull quote” – “Texas Chainsaw Massacre meets …” – but most of them missed the light garnish of awkward weirdness and a melancholic look at growing old. Pearl continues the idea of making sure every day is lived to its fullest. Dreams are meant to be fought for. You don’t want to get old and reminisce about your younger days and the “Icouldofbeens” or think that opportunities were lost. Then again, that is what makes us human. What West and Mia Goth bring to Pearl is an exploration of that but with a psychotic twist where the delusions of grandeur meet the hard reality of the world and it gets fatal.

Pearl takes place in 1918 and opens on the very same farm our main protagonists from X. We learn the backstory of Pearl, the old woman in X (also played by Mia Goth). She is the daughter of German farmers but her father is invalid and her mother is bearing most of the load in regards to the farm, cooking, and cleaning. Pearl is a dreamer and has aspirations to become a star. Turns out, she’ll do anything to get there even if it means murder.

The 1918 placement of Pearl is a curious one. It isn’t really said how old Pearl is in the prequel and it is really mentioned how old she is in X but she’s probably in her 80s. This sort of jives but it also feels like the film takes place during this time to make commentary on our current environment with masks and the fear of bringing home the Spanish Flu that could eradicate a family, especially her ailing father.

As a standalone film, it definitely is different from X. This is more of a psychological character piece versus the horny slasher. While it does make Mia Goth take the ball and run with it, and she’s great, it, unfortunately, brings up the fact that this is supposed to be a prequel. The burning question of how Pearl’s husband deals with her homicidal tendencies isn’t really answered. After the movie ends, you may feel like there should be another movie in between Pearl and X.

West does play with the audience a bit and shows us a fantastical side to the story by throwing in a delusional dance number as well as his love of cinema which also sets up the storyline and the foundation of pornography in film, even if briefly. I think it’s pretty obvious that the follow-up to X with the upcoming Maxxxine will probably comment on the home video boom in regards to independent pornography.