Review: 'Pearl' has its moments of gore, but it's more about the drama that sets up the exploitation of 'X'

Calling director Ti West’s “Pearl” a horror movie is a bit of a misnomer, because though it may have ample bloodshed and gore, they are secondary factors in this prequel to West’s “X.”

If you remember “X” (it was released only six months ago), it depicted a group of young people in 1979, renting space on a remote farm to make a porno film — and, after an hour of set-up, getting killed one by one for running afoul of the old couple who lived on the farm, Howard and Pearl. In “Pearl,” which was shot in secret during the filming of “X,” we get her origin story.

It’s 1918, and teen-age Pearl — played by Mia Goth, who played the wannabe porn star Maxine in “X,” and co-wrote this script with West — dreams of a better life than feeding the farm animals, cleaning up her immobile father (Matthew Sunderland), and enduring the harsh criticisms of her German-speaking mother, Ruth (Tandi Wright). She hasn’t heard from Howard, her husband, who’s away in Europe, fighting in the Great War, but sometimes gets visits from Howard’s perky sister, Misty (Emma Jenkins-Purro). 

Pearl’s dream, paralleling Maxine’s in “X,” is to be a famous star of the screen. When she can slip away from her mother’s gaze, she likes to go into town and watch the pictures and imagine herself as one of the dancing girls. She makes time with the handsome projectionist (David Corenswet), who shows her something they don’t usually play in the theaters: Stag films, where young men and women get naked and have sex with each other.

In the opening of the movie, West shows Pearl being kind to the farm animals — until a goose wanders into the barn, which she skewers with a pitchfork and then feeds to the alligator in the nearby pond. (She later finds alligator eggs, which likely explains why there’s still a hungry alligator in the same pond in “X,” 61 years later.) The goose’s demise hints at Pearl’s dark side, and the gore that West takes his sweet time delivering.

In contrast to “X,” which leaned hard into its exploitation roots, “Pearl” is more about the drama. What is most memorable when it’s all over is Goth’s gonzo yet earnest performance, throwing herself into the role whether Pearl is dry-humping a scarecrow or confessing her wicked ways to a horrified Misty.

Goth isn’t done with this franchise — a teaser after the end credits promises “MaXXXine,” set in Los Angeles in 1985. After giving it her all in “Pearl,” one can only imagine where Goth and West will take the story next, though one presumes it will be bloody.

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‘Pearl’

★★★

Opens Friday, September 18, in theaters everywhere. Rated R for some strong violence, gore, strong sexual content and graphic nudity. Running time: 102 minutes.