Goth reprises her role as the title character, with a supporting cast featuring David Corenswet, Tandi Wright, Matthew Sunderland, and Emma Jenkins-Purro.
Pearl serves as an origin story for the title villain, whose fervent aspiration to become a movie star led to her committing violent acts on her family's Texas homestead in 1918.
In 1918, Pearl is a young woman living with her German immigrant parents on their farm in Texas, while her husband, Howard, serves in World War I.
Her father is infirm and paralyzed, and her strict mother, Ruth, insists that she help care for both him and the farm as they isolate themselves to protect against the Spanish flu pandemic.
Pearl hears from Mitsy, her wealthy sister-in-law, of an audition to find new dancers for a troupe around the state, and envisions it as her ticket out of spending her life living on the farm and having to care for her father.
Mitsy accompanies her home in an attempt to console her, which results in Pearl launching into a lengthy confession regarding many things, from resentment toward her husband and having an affair to killing animals, her parents and the projectionist.
[5] After the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, seeing its impact on the cinema industry, West stated that he had been inspired to continue working and had decided to begin production of the prequel immediately after wrapping on the previous installment.
Describing his approach to X, he said he was heavily influenced by The Texas Chainsaw Massacre franchise and by the works of Mario Bava, which explore how the rise of independent filmmaking affected society.
Regarding Pearl, he described it as Douglas Sirk melodrama meeting the Technicolor style of Mary Poppins and The Wizard of Oz, made as a "demented Disney movie", and said it will explore how Hollywood filmmaking has influenced people.
Bates and Williams shared a liking of film scores from the classical Hollywood cinema mostly from Bernard Herrmann, John Barry, Henry Mancini, Ennio Morricone and Maurice Jarre.
[19] In the United States and Canada, Pearl was released alongside The Woman King and See How They Run, and was projected to gross around $4 million from 2,900 theaters in its opening weekend.
The site's consensus states: "Pearl finds Ti West squeezing fresh gore out of the world he created with X – and once again benefiting from a brilliant Mia Goth performance.
"[25] In his review for The Hollywood Reporter, David Rooney described it as a "cleverly packaged pandemic production with narrative echoes of that global anxiety", praising the screenplay, cinematography, score, and Goth's performance—which he compared to Shelley Duvall in The Shining (1980).
"[27] In a negative review, Ewan Gleadow of Cult Following wrote that while West "doubles down on what made X such a chilling feature and consolidates what he is good at", the film ultimately "feels like a weak parody of the MGM days of The Wizard of Oz.
"[28] Similarly, Derek Smith of Slant Magazine thought that, while The Wizard of Oz references were "purposeful", they lacked "follow through", creating an impression that the film is more focused on showcasing its "cleverness" rather than enhancing its narrative or character depth.
[29] Filmmaker Martin Scorsese was reportedly impressed by the film, calling it "mesmerizing" and stating that it was "powered by a pure, undiluted love for cinema".
[30][31] The New York Times named the character of Pearl one of the 93 most stylish people of 2022, highlighting her "blood red dress, lacy blue bow, smudged makeup, boots … and ax".
[35] West announced in March 2022 that he was working on the script for a third movie in the film series, to be set chronologically after the events of X and intended to explore another subgenre of horror and continue depicting how cinema in general, and the development of home video releases in particular, have influenced society.
Titled MaXXXine, the film takes place in 1985 and serves as a sequel to X, centered around Maxine, the only survivor of the "Massacre of X" as she continues to pursue fame in Hollywood.