Cinematic legend Martin Scorsese turns 80 in November 2022, but he is still endlessly enthusiastic and curious about new-release movies. And the Wolf of Wall Street director has weighed in on A24‘s latest horror movie – Pearl – which is a prequel to Ti West’s X.
X was released in March 2022 and is set in the 1970s, about a guerilla film crew who descend on an isolated farmhouse to shoot a porn movie. It heavily replicated the visual style and plot of 70s horror movies. In an unusual move, director West and A24 then announced that a prequel movie called Pearl would be coming out in September of the same year.
Mia Goth played the young Maxine in X, as well as the elderly antagonist Pearl – completely unrecognisable under layers of make up. She also plays the young Pearl in the prequel, which is set in 1918. The aesthetic is very different to X, and is influenced by the Golden Age of Hollywood (especially The Wizard of Oz), as well as 1950s sitcoms and melodramas.
Scorsese sent a message to A24 (via SlashFilm), which reads; “Ti West’s movies have a kind of energy that is so rare these days, powered by a pure, undiluted love for cinema. You feel it in every frame. A prequel to X made in a diametrically opposite cinematic register (think 50s Scope colour melodramas), Pearl makes for a wild, mesmerizing, deeply — and I mean deeply — disturbing 102 minutes.”
“West and his muse and creative partner Mia Goth really know how to toy with their audience … before they plunge the knife into our chests and start twisting. I was enthralled, then disturbed, then so unsettled that I had trouble getting to sleep. But I couldn’t stop watching.”
Our TIFF review agrees with Scorsese, saying that; “West is having fun playing in a Hollywood sandbox and with the history of movie-making, and the result is a film that is colourful, funny, and entertaining.”
Check out our guide to the best Netflix horror movies.