Martin Scorsese couldn’t sleep after “deeply disturbing” Pearl
A24Martin Scorsese was so “disturbed” by Pearl, A24’s prequel to X, that he struggled to sleep.
Last year, Ti West’s X hit cinemas. It’s a better ode to The Texas Chain Saw Massacre than Netflix’s Texas Chainsaw Massacre, relishing and subverting exploitation cinema with something icky and bracingly fresh.
From a budget of just $1 million, it managed to gross more than $14 million worldwide, and that wasn’t all – A24 was clearly confident in the original movie, as it had already green-lit a follow-up to be filmed in secret.
The prequel chronicles the origin story of Pearl, the horny old woman who skewers a bunch of amateur adult filmmakers in X. It’s been getting rave reviews, including high praise from Scorsese.
Martin Scorsese praises “deeply disturbing” X prequel Pearl
Scorsese was so impressed by Pearl that he sent a review to A24, commending the director and Mia Goth’s performance as the titular villain.
As per Slash Film, the legendary filmmaker wrote: “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 color 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.”
Pearl has already made its money back; from a budget of $1 million, it’s grossed $3.1 million in its domestic haul alone.
Pearl is in US cinemas now. Yet, for unknown, infuriating reasons, it’s yet to be released in the UK.
