While X was an unusually humane spin on the slasher formula, the Ti West horror movie’s prequel Pearl will likely make the earlier hit’s story far sadder. The gory, R-rated slasher movie X was a violent, tense tale of an ill-fated porn crew being picked off one by one at a remote farmhouse. However, despite how unlikely it may seem, director Ti West still injected significant poignancy into X’s brutal tale.
Unlike most slasher movies, X humanized its villains, Pearl and Howard, a pair of aging farmhands whose once-passionate marriage had been reduced to a bitter, spiteful arrangement years before the movie began. A handful of sequences in X (most of which take place before the killing starts) display Pearl’s humanity and her sad struggle with accepting her advancing age, allowing X to delve deeper into the villain’s character than most slasher movies ever attempt. However, the upcoming prequel Pearl will likely make X’s story even sadder.
There was already something oddly moving about Pearl’s inability to accept her aging in X, but the prequel Pearl is likely to make this story strand even more tragic. Pearl is a very different movie from X, partly due to its earlier setting. Where X was set in the 70s, Pearl will be set in 1918, around the end of the first World War. Pearl depicts the early life of X's villainess Pearl, and from Pearl’s trailer alone, it is clear the prequel will make X’s depiction of her later years even more poignant since it will depict the murderous, ultimately pointless lengths she went to in search of fame and adoration.
Pearl Could Mirror X’s Story
Judging by the movie’s trailer, Pearl will see its titular heroine seduced away from a troubled family into the entertainment industry, only for her to find out that show business is seedier than it seems. This is the same situation faced by Mia Goth’s horror heroine in X, although Pearl seemingly kills to gain fame, whereas the Final Girl of X ran away from an oppressive family home. Although these murders make Pearl a far less sympathetic character than X’s heroine, her disillusionment with her lot in life—along with the knowledge that she never gains her sought-after fame and dies a brutal death decades later—will make both the prequel and its predecessor X far sadder.
Even though viewers are unlikely to root for Pearl as she kills off her family members to escape her humdrum existence, it is still sad to already know that all of this death and destruction will result in failure for her. Similarly, while it is tough to feel for her character, the hints in Pearl's trailer that Goth’s character could be pushed to kill by being exploited could make her backstory much more sympathetic and understandable. However, even if Pearl does not explain the root of the title character's violent murders, the fact that the audience is already clued into her ultimate fate makes the prequel inherently tragic. As such, X’s prequel is bound to be a sad watch no matter how much gory horror comedy and brutal kills Pearl throws at audiences.