Starring: Mia Goth, David Corenswet, Tandi Wright, Matthew Sunderland, Emma Jenkins-Purro, Alistair Sewell
Distributor: Madman Entertainment
Runtime: 103 mins. Reviewed in Mar 2023
Reviewer: Fr Peter Malone msc
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It’s 1918 at an isolated homestead in Texas. A young wife whose husband is serving in France is left with demanding parents, and her obsession with wanting more to life – to be a star, a dancer – but an obsession that possesses her and drives her to violence.
West is a cult director, best known for horror films on the big screen and, more recently, on television, with perhaps the best known, The Innkeepers. Critics admire his work. They particularly praised West’s 2022 slasher-drama, X, a ’70s tale of a group of filmmakers working at a Texas farm, echoes of chainsaw massacres, making a sex film of the times. After the deaths, a survivor moved back to the house, confronting the evil old woman in the attic. She was played by Goth who also played one of the filmmakers.
West has had the idea of a prequel – but not in the way that we might expect. We go back to 1918, more than half a century before X. But, those in the know, recognise the same house, the property, the farm, the river, the alligator . . .
And Goth is here again, playing Pearl. At first, the house and life on the farm has the touch of nice Norman Rockwell paintings – but, we soon learn the sinister aspects of life. Pearl’s husband, Howard, is away fighting in France. The family has a German background and is treated suspiciously by the locals. The father sits in his wheelchair, after a stroke, unable to speak, paralysed, needing to be washed and fed. The mother, stern, Germanic, often speaking in German, controls Pearl. So far, so expected, but creating an atmosphere.
Pearl, on the other hand, who is burdened with all the chores, loves to dance. When she goes into town to buy her father’s medicine, she sneaks await the local picture show, losing herself, especially in the dancing films (which are shown with a soundtrack here). She encounters the handsome projectionist who invites her back at any time. Because she spent some money at the pictures, her mother then takes her meal away from her as compensation for the lost coins.
Pearl has a good friend, Mitzi, who tells her that the local church is having auditions for a dance troupe to travel around the state. Obviously, conflict is expected.
While we realise that Pearl is obsessed, and we know that there is going to be some violence, especially since we saw Pearl earlier killing a goose with a pitchfork and feeding it to the alligator, but it is still something of a shock when have Pearl viciously lashes out.
As regards the public, West’s films have a particular demographic, fans of horror films and films with a touch of the gory, but also fans of horror films which give more thought to the plot and themes than the average thriller.
Goth gives a persuasive performance – ordinary, put upon, obsessed, violent, wanting sexual compensation, and the director gives her an opportunity to communicate herself and what goes inside her mind, her feelings, in a seven-minute monologue towards the end of the film, Pearl with her friend Mitzi, who has invited her to express her feelings to her absent husband, a variation on two-chair therapy. It is a memorable monologue.
And, during the final credits, there is a long close-up on Pearl’s face, a strange grin, something of a rictus kind of grin, but some tears as well.
And then Pearl must have gone up into the attic to reappear menacingly half a century later.
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