Pearl Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		5.0
Audio		4.5
Extras		2.0
Overall		3.5

Pearl Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman November 11, 2022

Note: Lionsgate's PR firm provided this Wal-mart exclusive edition of Pearl for review purposes, but there is a non-exclusive edition of Pearl available at Amazon that has different cover art.

In one of the supplements included on the Blu-ray release of X, writer and director Ti West may have raised more than a few politically correct eyebrows when he mentioned how a certain "entrepreneurial" zeal helped sparked the porn industry in the 1970s and in at least a tangential way, the whole "independent film" movement of that era (and beyond). Well, West is back with Pearl, a prequel of sorts to X, and one where West perhaps alludes to the fact that porn "entrepreneurs" were not just a factor in the seventies, but well before that, courtesy of a brief showing of what is evidently a real silent "stag" film from days of yore. That particular element is almost a throwaway in a film which seeks to provide the so-called "backstory" for the character of Pearl (Mia Goth), who was seen in X as a demented elder. Here's she's a demented younger (so to speak), but she's already developing that "particular set of skills" which comes into play in X. Pearl is an absolute showcase for Goth and also for West, his production designer Tom Hammock and cinematographer Eliot Rockett, but the film may actually not partner with its progenitor as well as might be hoped.

Mia Goth is on hand in an interview in one of the supplements on this disc mentioning how Pearl was born almost as a lark when X was first in pre-production and then actually shooting. She also discloses that once the sequel got its greenlight, there was an original plan to film it in black and white, though some studio bigwig evidently put the kibosh on that. Instead, Goth and West (who's also interviewed again) discuss how they decided to go in the completely opposite direction by offering a modern digital version of Technicolor. West and Rockett also forego the "ratio" sleight of hand I mention in the X Blu-ray review, and instead offer a consistent widescreen framing which provides a perhaps subliminal anachronism to the fact the film is set in 1918.

X was often a fascinating viewing experience, and there was the inherent showmanship and/or showwomanship of Mia Goth in two radically different parts, but as I alluded to in my review of that first film, even that connection never really paid off in any substantial way. X also might be faulted by some for not really having a clear point of view as to what all the mayhem was really about. On one level, the film served as West's proposed "highbrow" approach to typically "lowbrow" slasher fare, which is all fine and good, but what exactly did the story of Maxine Minx (that was the younger character Mia Goth played) really have to do with Pearl's, other than that Max is one of several people shooting a porno on Pearl's property in that first outing. The whole Pearl character in X is again viscerally fascinating but I'd argue not really "meaningful" as anything other than a "boogie woman", even if the film makes fitful stabs (no pun intended) at a melancholic aspect of lost youth and dreams.

Now, Pearl enters that particular fray by establishing the character's "formative" (?) years as a young woman on an isolated Kansas farm which, unlike X, is in very good repair and seemingly the ideal of the American Dream, at least the rural variety. But it's soon revealed that Pearl lives with an overwrought and harridan mother Ruth (Tandi Wright), who has been tasked with taking care of Pearl's father (Matthew Sunderland), who is incapacitated and confined to a wheelchair, perhaps as the result of a debilitating stroke. Even before these troubling relationships are introduced, however, it's documented that Pearl has one of the major signs of a sociopathic personality, namely killing innocent animals, which then kind of cheekily reintroduces one of the locations and what one might term ancillary culprits from X.

Without giving away too many details about the accruing body count, suffice it to say that Pearl's concerns about her parents are taken care of, all while she waits for the return of Howard (Alistair Sewell) from World War I, while also developing romantic feelings for a character Goth suggests in that supplement may or may not be a figment of her imagination and who is identified only by his stock in trade, projectionist (David Corenswet) at the local silent movie emporium. I'd actually argue that the projectionist certainly seems to be a real character, though the film is otherwise not shy about developing Pearl's "inner world", as in a patently gonzo song and dance routine Pearl engages in when she auditions for a traveling theatrical troupe which passes through town looking for new chorus girls.

Pearl has a self admitted blatant theatricality which is probably nowhere better exemplified than in a bizarrely long held closing image featuring Pearl, which may at least momentarily distract from a whole host of questions that arise from the sudden appearance of a character at the tail end of the story. That would seem to point in the direction of another "historical" follow up delineating "the rest of the story" after this appearance up to the events of X, but instead it looks like the next film in this nascent franchise may be returning to Maxine in the seventies.

Pearl Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Pearl is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Lionsgate Films and A24 with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.39:1. The IMDb hasn't aggregated much technical data on this film yet, but your intrepid reviewer found this interview with director of photography Eliot Rockett where he gets into a bunch of rather interesting "nuts and bolts" about the shoot, including the fact that he once again used Sony Venice cameras. There's unfortunately no information in the interview about the resolution of the DI, but I frankly wouldn't be surprised to find out it's 4K, since detail levels are often so precisely rendered throughout this presentation, despite a fair number stylistic flourishes. As mentioned above, West and Rockett attempted to recreate a modern digital version of Technicolor, and one of the outstanding merits of this transfer is the incredibly vivid palette. It looks to me like a fair amount of green screen work may have been utilized for various farm scenes, but that actually adds another layer of "theatricality", or at least "cinema-cality", if that's a word. The farm material in particular pops unbelievably well, with bright, commanding blues, reds, greens and yellows. Fine detail in the more brightly lit moments is typically excellent, and can even be very good in a number of rather dimly lit sequences, as in some of the interior work inside the farmhouse. There's once again noticeable banding during the Lionsgate masthead, but I noticed nothing problematic in the actual feature.

Pearl Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Pearl features a well designed DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track which delivers consistent surround activity, even if some can be relatively subtle, as in the slight rippling noise made by Pearl's "pet" named Theda (you'll have to see the movie if you don't catch the reference). A glut of ambient environmental effects also are nicely splayed around the side and rear channels during a number of outdoor scenes, and a couple of more whimsical quasi-musical moments, as in Pearl's dance with a scarecrow or the later, even more gonzo, "audition" sequence also nicely engage the surround channels. Dialogue is rendered cleanly and clearly throughout. Optional English and Spanish subtitles are available. Pearl's mother is supposedly German, and some German dialogue in the film features forced English subtitles.

Pearl Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Coming Out of Her Shell: The Creation of Pearl (HD; 11:38) is an above average EPK, with some good interviews with Goth, West, Wright and Corenswet.


• Time After Time (HD; 4:01) looks at how production design had to differentiate between the look of this film versus X.


• Teaser Trailer (HD; 1:02)


• Theatrical Trailer (HD; 2:13)

Additionally, both DVD and digital copies are included, and packaging features a slipcover.

Pearl Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

There are a couple of passing homages to other legendary horror films in both X and Pearl (see screenshot 3 for one clear reference to Psycho in this film), but it's frankly really in Pearl's ostensible connection to X where things ironically may not be as well connected. I'm frankly still not sure where West is going with this nascent franchise, but Goth is a feral force of nature here, and the film's look is really amazing. I will say that the whole use of a pitchfork as an implement of terror was perhaps more subtly utilized in The Other. Technical merits are first rate, and the few supplements appealing. Recommended.