AN X-TRAORDINARY ORIGIN STORY.

Texas, 1918; as a family of German immigrants are trying to stay safe from the influenza pandemic, the daughter (Mia Goth) dreams of a life as a performer.

Not a sequel to X (2022), but a film that takes place many decades before it, providing the killer in that movie with a background story. This isn’t just a slasher pic, but a full-blown tragedy, where poor Pearl, the girl who really has no future, learns that her only path to liberty lies in taking her habit of killing farm animals much, much further.

Thrilling, scary and sad, but also devilishly amusing, with colorful references to films like The Wizard of Oz and Psycho. Goth shines in the lead.

2022-U.S. 102 min. Color. Widescreen. Directed and edited by Ti West. Screenplay: Ti West, Mia Goth. Cast: Mia Goth (Pearl), David Corenswet (The Projectionist), Tandi Wright (Ruth), Matthew Sunderland, Emma Jenkins-Purro. 

Trivia: Co-executive produced by Goth and Sam Levinson; co-produced by West. 

Last word: “We all had visas [to New Zealand] and were about to spend a lot of money building all these sets [for X], the barn and the boarding house and all that, and we had a great crew, and to me, to go down there and do all that, just to then tear everything down and go home, seemed wasteful and silly. It seemed like there was an opportunity to make two movies in a row, especially at a time when it seemed uncertain if we would ever make a movie again. That’s where it first came from, and from a production standpoint, the costs were very amortized, so it made sense as a line-budget thing, but it would only really make sense if the movie was good.” (West, Rue Morgue)