At a glance
| Director | Ti West |
| Release year | 2022 |
| Runtime | 102 minutes |
| Genre | Psychological horror, period slasher |
| Starring | Mia Goth, David Corenswet, Tandi Wright, Matthew Sunderland |
Plot
In 1918, Pearl is stuck on her parents’ farm while her husband Howard is away at the war. Her mother runs the house. Her father sits in a chair and does not speak. Pearl wants to be a dancer in the pictures. A local audition and a projectionist in town are the exits she can see. The influenza quarantine and her mother are the doors.
The film is a portrait that turns into a killing story. Pearl talks to the animals. She rehearses. She is not believed. What she does about that is the plot of X’s future villain, shown here as a young woman who already thinks the farm is a prison. The last shot holds on her face longer than a studio film usually allows.
Production
Ti West and Mia Goth wrote it together during the quarantine that surrounded the X shoot. They filmed it in New Zealand immediately after X, on the same farm, with a different palette: saturated color, a Technicolor musical’s lighting, a 1918 story. A24 released it on September 16, 2022. Goth is almost the whole movie. David Corenswet plays the projectionist. Tandi Wright plays the mother. Matthew Sunderland plays the father.
The film is a prequel. Howard, Pearl’s husband, is the old man in X. The dance audition and the scarecrow are the images people quote. Goth’s long monologue at the table was a production gamble: one character explaining herself without a cut to save her. West has said the film is about wanting to be seen, which is also Maxine’s line in X, sixty years later.
Cast
- Mia Goth as Pearl
- David Corenswet as the projectionist
- Tandi Wright as Ruth, Pearl’s mother
- Matthew Sunderland as Pearl’s father
- Emma Jenkins-Purro as Mitsy
- Alistair Sewell as Howard
Trivia
- Goth co-wrote the script. She is not only the star.
- It was shot back to back with X, then released second.
- The color is meant to recall mid-century musicals, not 1970s slashers.
- Howard is the husband who will still be on the farm in 1979.
- The final held smile is the shot the marketing used.
- MaXXXine does not continue Pearl’s 1918 story. It continues Maxine’s.
Related on this site
Trailer
Go Behind the Screams
Monster Fest’s featurette on the making of Ti West’s Technicolor-inspired origin story of X’s iconic villain.
Origins of Pearl
Ti West and Mia Goth discuss how the X prequel came about, from the film’s Blu-ray bonus features.