Few female villains in the history of horror have been so beguiling as Pearl (Mia Goth). We first meet this dancing murderess in the twilight days of her life as she slaughters the cast and crew of a low-budget porno in Ti West’s X. The second film in this feminist trilogy takes us all the way back to Pearl’s own youth when she too was a would-be starlet hoping to make it in Hollywood.
The stylish Pearl explores the limitations placed on women in the early 1900s while giving us the origin story of a vicious predator. Tim Waggoner continues his novelization of West’s trilogy by playing with the motivations and backstories of this doomed cast of characters. Waggoner’s literary adaptation of X allows us to peer into Pearl’s mind, explaining her practice of targeting victims for her own sexual pleasure. His Pearl adaptation provides an origin for this destructive pattern while exploring the mind of a sexual sadist on the brink of committing her first murder.
We read about the macabre collection Pearl keeps in her room along with her horrific treatment of her sister-in-law’s corpse. We join her husband on his return to the aptly titled Powder Keg Farms and learn why he’s not not exactly surprised by the hideous tableau Pearl has prepared. Along with these terrifying tidbits and grisly details, Waggoner fills in crucial details about Pearl’s doomed family and a hellish life under her mother’s cruel thumb.
Pearl lives a lonely life on her parents’ farm, charged with helping to manage the expansive property. Chief among her chores is to help care for her Father (Matthew Sunderland) who has been incapacitated by illness and spends his days languishing in a wheelchair. West implies that his condition is caused by the flu pandemic ravaging the globe, but Waggoner gives us a bit more information. After contracting the dreaded virus, Daddy had a stroke and has since lost the ability to move or speak, though he seems to be fully aware of his surroundings. The formerly jovial man once doted on his only child, but has now become a burden to his wife and daughter. Pearl remembers Daddy discovering her with a lit cigarette in hand and vowing to keep it a secret from his wife. In fact, Daddy often served as a buffer between the house’s two women, frequently smoothing over arguments before they could spiral out of control. Now that he’s unable to intervene, their resentments have reached a boiling point and lead to a deadly confrontation. Though likely inevitable, Pearl’s initial killing spree could be seen as a direct result of her father’s illness.
With her husband Howard (Alistair Sewell) fighting overseas and her community forced to quarantine, Pearl spends most of her time on the farm alone. Her only friends are barnyard animals and an alligator who lives in a nearby pond. She’s named this creature after film star Theda Bara, and frequently brings her the carcasses of animals she kills. When Pearl stumbles upon Theda’s nest, she steals an egg to take back to the barn. West shows Pearl crushing this egg in her palm while imagining her husband exploding on the battle-field—a grotesque depiction of her seething anger—but Waggoner fleshes out this curious move. Pearl plans to watch the egg hatch up close and eventually return the baby alligator to its mother. She’s even picked out a name for the infant—Lillian Gish—and kills one of the family’s sheep to give it a cozy nest. But it’s not long before Pearl realizes she cannot recreate the natural incubator of Theda’s pond and abandons this plan, crushing the egg in an explosion of rage.
Though she is a cold-blooded killer, Pearl becomes an aspirational figure with her frank and shameless expression of sexuality. Shortly after meeting the lonely farmer’s daughter, we watch her ride a scarecrow to climax in the middle of a corn field. She’s just met a handsome Projectionist (David Corenswet) and pictures him in place of the life-sized doll though she is alternately horrified by this nod to infidelity. Her fantasies continue late at night when she sees the Projectionist appear outside her bedroom window. Pearl follows him out to the barn where he’s set up a romantic picnic date and a screening of her favorite film. It’s not until the chorus line features identical Pearls all kicking in unison that she realizes this is only a dream. Through Pearl, West continues his exploration of pornography and horror filtered through a historical lens. During a late night visit to the cinema, the Projectionist plays a salacious reel in which an onscreen man has sex with two women. Riding her bicycle back to the farm, Pearl imagines the scene playing out across the cloudy night sky starring herself, the Projectionist, and her sister-in-law Mitsy (Emma Jenkins-Purro). Climaxing as she rides, this vision brings Pearl the strongest orgasm of her life.
Though Pearl is a killer in her own right, her mother Ruth (Tandi Wright) emerges as the film’s second villain. This harsh German immigrant insists on strict adherence to her rules and seems to go out of her way to make her daughter’s life miserable. We learn that Ruth does not believe in second helpings and refuses to use her own fancy dining room—adding a poignant touch to Pearl’s final tableau. The would-be star suspects that should Ruth find out about a local dance audition Pearl plans to attend, she would lock her daughter in the cellar. It seems the two have never gotten along and show barely concealed hatred towards each other. At the audition, Pearl spies another mom consoling her devastated daughter and wonders what it would be like to receive maternal love. After her own disastrous audition, Pearl attempts to force this emotional connection. She encircles herself with her mother’s burned and lifeless arms while imagining a miraculously healed Ruth singing a German lullaby to calm her tears. West presents this as a tender yet bizarre moment between a daughter and the mother she killed, but Waggoner adds heartbreaking context. Earlier in the film, Pearl stumbles upon Ruth comforting her husband with this very song. Pearl later uses her corpse to recreate the affection Ruth once gave to her husband but could never bring herself to bestow on her daughter.
Pearl concludes with the titular killer reckoning with her failures and attempting to take control of her limited life. It’s a fascinating character study in sadistic empowerment, but Waggoner makes clear we are also witnessing the making of a murderer. We learn that while our dark heroine has a habit of killing animals, she has never intentionally taken a human life. This all changes when the Projectionist balks at Pearl’s strange behavior and blatant lies about noises in the cellar. Though Pearl has been fantasizing about keeping the dazzling man as a sexual plaything in her family’s bunkhouse—an ominous nod to her future crimes—she becomes enraged when he makes a hasty exit back to his borrowed car. She slowly approaches the Projectionist with a pitchfork, intending to savor each moment of her first kill. After repeatedly stabbing him in the chest, Pearl stands over her former lover with weapon in hand. She relishes the terror she sees on his face before plunging the center tine through his skull.
A24’s official novelizations of X and Pearl are now available. Look for MaXXXine in early 2025.
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