I was extremely moved by the end of "Pearl". Perhaps equally disturbed. The second film of this promising trilogy is a prequel that proves to be necessary, but it's curious how one film doesn't survive so well without the other while they are both their own and unique in their respective proposals. I think "X " is much better at dealing with verbiage to express how marginalized individuals in their own dreams don't overcome social rules and succumb to fears that those rules expose as immoral and dirty. Already "Pearl" works in an aspect more opposite to its mission. The film doesn't offer deep or surprising answers and isn't subversive as "X" tries to be, which is perhaps why his journey is so tragic and disturbing. The dark humor of the first film gives space to the dreamlike and cartoonish, giving the film a different way of laughing at the macabre ironies of reality. The interesting and unforgettable scene of the end credits sums up and encapsulates very well all the parodied aesthetics of a Disney princess movie, extolling the excellent and already iconic Mia Goth and her character as the center of the film and its great psychological study. And still commenting on these final scenes, it's fascinating how Ti West reorganizes the future of her protagonist as the actress of her tragic life by modernizing the horrors of Pearl's acts with a more free and creative editing, finishing the development of this woman with this symbology of mental chaos harmonized by the acceptance of an inescapable reality. For an origin story, though, this chaos doesn't follow all the possibilities for a more sadistically fun gore. In "X" we were following antagonists too destroyed to shed the skin of the insatiable, sexual youth on their farm. Here, West chooses to be more bloodthirsty only in this cut of poetic scenes for the narrative, but Pearl is little shown delighting in her psychopathy and some of the cruelest moments of any and all good slasher could have more space. Aside from the visual truisms like audition oaths being used as stand-ins for their victims, "Pearl" is a great prequel and a great opportunity for Mia Goth to establish herself in her generation as the star that began to shine in "X."

The magic of novelty perhaps possessed me better in the first film of the trilogy, but "Pearl" is considerably scarier and worthy of its antagonist.