On September 16, Pearl, the prequel to X, arrived in theaters. The two movies were able to be released in the same year because Pearl was filmed in the same location immediately after X.

The year is 1918. Pearl (Mia Goth) dreams of becoming a famous dancing girl in the movies. Unfortunately, with her husband, Howard (Alistair Sewell), overseas serving in World War I, she has been forced to live on her family farm with her domineering mother, Ruth (Tandi Wright), and her infirm father (Matthew Sunderland). While in town buying medicine for her father, Pearl meets the man responsible for showing the movies at the cinema. The two take a liking to each other and the projectionist (David Corenswet) promises to take her overseas to be a famous dancer. But Pearl has an audition with her sister-in-law, Mitsy (Emma Jenkins-Purro), to be a dancing girl in a traveling church show. If only life would go the way Pearl wants…

I found Pearl much more interesting than X. In X, I felt like we never got a reason why Pearl was the way she was. She was just an extremely horny old woman who murdered people when she didn’t get what she wanted. The closest thing we got to a reason for her behavior was that Howard kept refusing sex due to his weak heart. In Pearl, however, we get to see her mental deterioration and the abuse she endured from her mother. It actually made a bit of sense when she started her murder spree. I wonder if watching Pearl before X would make X a better movie.

If you are into slasher-type films, you will probably enjoy Pearl. Not only is Goth amazing as poor Pearl, Wright is absolutely terrifying as her abusive mother. I also tip my hat to Sunderland, who could only use his eyes to convey how he felt at any given moment. If the third film in the series, Maxxxine, is as good as Pearl, this series may go down as one of the best horror trilogies around.