Pearl
Cert: 18 | ★★★★★

Acclaimed cult filmmaker Ti West and actor Mia Goth are reunited in this devilishly playful prequel to their previous collaboration, X.

In 1918, Pearl (Goth) a troubled young woman on the brink of madness, pursues a dream of becoming a film star to escape her humdrum existence on a remote Texas farm.

Pearl finds solace in a charming cinema projectionist (David Corenswet) with film-star looks who encourages her to seize her chance and plan her escape from home.

At odds with her strict German mother (Tandi Wright), Pearl hatches a plan to free herself from her past.

West and Goth deliver a wickedly playful nightmare peppered throughout with classic movie aesthetics.

Pearl credit A24 (3)

A scene from Pearl (A24)

With dashes of The Wizard of Oz mixed in with Hitchcockian slasher tropes, Pearl is truly a treasure trove of Easter eggs for fans of the genre. Injecting that famous duality of light versus dark applied by David Lynch in Blue Velvet, West and longtime cinematographer Eliot Rockett deliver a sunny film often charged with outlandish melodrama and plenty of gore.

Goth, whose maternal grandfather is Jewish-American artist Lee Jaffe, has truly come into her own lately.

With this film and her starring role in Brandon Cronenberg’s upcoming mind-twisting horror Infinity Pool, the British born actor is slowly emerging as a cult film favourite who is as astute at picking her projects as she is as honing her acting craft.

Pearl is fresh, subversive and drenched in delicious irony and dark humour, West’s best production yet. And while the film is as gory and as perversely wicked as they come, there is something disarmingly old-fashioned about the way it looks that makes it truly irresistible.