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The first reactions to Ti West’s ‘Pearl’ are very exciting

Sun 4 September 2022 11:50, UK

It was only a few months ago that American filmmaker Ti West treated audiences to his phenomenal horror movie pastiche X, yet the creative director has always had several tricks up his sleeve, having planned to release the sequel mere months after the first film.

Premiering at the Venice Film Festival last night, the new movie, which stars Mia Goth as a younger version of the sinister killer seen in X, is co-written by both Goth and director Ti West. Set in 1918, the film tells the story of Pearl, a young girl trapped on her family’s isolated farm living under the watchful eye of her overbearing mother and father whilst she longs for a life inspired by the glamour of the movies.

Thankfully for fans of West, the first reactions to the new movie are overwhelmingly positive. Celebrated by a number of significant journalists, Peter Bradshaw from The Guardian, stated, “Perhaps I shouldn’t have enjoyed Pearl as much as I did: but it’s clever, limber, gruesome and brutally well acted. A gem”.

Meanwhile, over at The Telegraph, the resident film critic Robbie Collin also had kind words for the prequel film, stating, “In her first outright lead role Goth is straightforwardly tremendous, and gets to move through the considerable breadth of her talent even within individual shots. The last one here is a scorcher, veering from vaudevillian daftness to Lynchian unease”.

Meanwhile, The Hollywood Reporter’s David Rooney was quick to comment on the film’s camp aspects, stating that the film is “A gruesome portrait of another young woman hungering for a life greater than the fate she’s been handed, it makes an amusing companion piece to X”.

Take a look at the trailer for the film below, which is hitting cinemas in the US on September 16th, with a UK date yet to be confirmed.