‘Pearl Review: Ti West And Mia Goths ‘X Prequel Delivers More Technicolor Camp Than Horror
Released earlier this year, T. West's Wickedly Fun X unleashes an unsuspecting villain after he plunges the small cast and crew of a cheap '70s Los Angeles sex film into the realm of Texas chainsaw carnage. A film-within-a-film adventure that subverts the norms of female sexuality, subverts the male gaze, and doubles the exploitative thrills of the worst-case scenario, a neophomaniac witch. Revisiting six decades ago, Pearl awakens a new celebrity only to ruthlessly destroy her dreams, which means someone will pay in blood.
If the execution sequence is appealing to the imagination and lacks genuine horror, the retro stylings of the premise are fun. Cinematographer Elliott Rocket's richly colored images leap off the screen, while Tyler Bates and Tim Williams' loud, old-school orchestral soundtrack convey high drama and danger from the start. The title's vintage font and use of sweeps and fades in scene transitions exude a 1950s fantasy.
pearlThe concluding Sirkian slasher? why not?
Venue: Venice Film Festival (Out of Competition) Release Date: Friday, September 16 Cast: Mia Goth, David Cornswett, Thandie Wright, Matthew Sunderland, Emma Jenkins-Puro, Alistair Sewell Director: T West Writers: T West, Mia Goth Rated R , 1 hour 42 minutesLike Todd Hayne, Julianne Moore answers to intimate homosexuals by creating far-from-the-sky creations and forbidden racial love with pitchforks and axes.
In the year After playing dual roles in 1918's X, Mia Goth returns to her title role as Maxine, a rising queen of debauchery, and Pearl, a dimwitted country girl who yearns to see herself as an object of interest on the big screen. As his innocence begins to crumble. There is a Shelley Duvall quality to her performance, with predatory eyes, desperate and haunting urgency.
Gott co-wrote the script with West while they were in isolation in New Zealand due to the Covid-19 filming, filming Pearl on the same sets and locations. When the writing and pacing fail, a long monologue about Pearl's stunning realization that her dreams cannot come true at the end of the act almost stops the film in its tracks. . They remain dominant.
She misses her husband, Howard (Aleister Sewell), Pearl, who is fighting in the war as the deadly Spanish flu pandemic ravages the world. He lives on a farm under the oppressive rule of his religious German immigrant mother, Ruth (Tandie Wright), and takes care of his father (Matthew Sunderland), who is mute and immobile due to his health. But the depression in her life didn't stop Pearl from throwing herself into her room and dreaming of becoming a ballerina in a movie.
"I'm special," says Maxine, echoing her belief in the X Factor in a previous film, "one day the whole world will know my name." This belief itself mocks a distraught Ruth, who confesses her guilt. She noticed her son's strange features, and realized that perhaps the farm animals were disappearing, to feed Pearl the crocodile that lived in the lake.
Grabbing her father's morphine sulfate to quell her frustration, Pearl sneaks out to the local movie theater whenever she can, where she takes an interest in a handsome projectionist (David Korensewet) and whets her visual appetite. At first, she remains faithful to her absent husband and, out of curiosity, works terribly in the cornfield. But sex is already in the air between them when the prognosticator shows Pearl a scandalous European "film" (comedy black-and-white prelude style). She confesses that she is tied to her parents: "I wish they could die."
In T. West's film, it's okay for Pearl to get her wish, even if it takes a painful time, and they're not the only victims, as she pins all her stardom hopes on a regional audition. A dance review was held at a local church.
Meanwhile, Ruth doubles down on the ban when she senses a darkness in her daughter. "Your temper is burning," he told Pearl. "I've seen this, and I'm not letting her leave this farm again. It's bad news for everyone, including Pearl's perky sister (Emma Jenkins-Puro), who runs off to the dance show with her."
As the Goth slowly loosen their grip on Pearl and her sanity fades, it makes her fear her own destructive abilities. "There's one thing the rest of the world won't lose," she murmured in a shaky voice as she plotted to escape the farm, her elaborate illusions and her increasingly indistinguishable reality.
West and Goth don't shy away from the script's cheesy arc, but it's still scary when Pearl starts wreaking havoc and their poor dad just watches in horror and silence. And when Audit goes south and pushes her over the edge, we feel her anger, a display of gentle and evil Goth conflict.
As the action takes a wild turn, Pearl is denied access to the Rainbow by a vengeful agent and tragic figure, the vengeful Dorothy. The crimson wallpaper in the hallway of the country house positively vibrates, and the roasted pig that Ruth goes begging on the porch turns into a swarm of worms.
It's hard to say what hardcore horror fans are going to make of this, as this is mostly a spoof of traditional "feminine" images, not the other way around. But as a production of Pandemic, cleverly crafted with a narrative that resonates with this universal anxiety, it is, if nothing else, something new. A portrait of another young woman longing for a better life than herself, X makes for an interesting sidekick.
