X Movie Killer Backstory Explained | Screen Rant
Warning: Contains SPOILERS for Ti West's X.
Ti West's X features a terrifying killer with decidedly human motivations, but what are Pearl's backstory and origins? First released domestically on March 18th, 2022, Ti West's "erotic horror" X has opened to rave reviews from the horror community, with critics noting X's desire to return to a well-trodden slasher formula that firmly acts as a poignant homage to classics such as John Carpenter's Halloween and Tobe Hooper's The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. Despite the finality of its ending, director Ti West has already announced an X sequel titled Pearl is in post-production, having been filmed simultaneously in secret alongside X.
X follows an aspiring young film crew as they arrive at a secluded Texas farm to shoot a pornographic film in the late 1970s, which idealistic director RJ (Owen Campbell) believes will be "a piece of cinema." Blinded by their ambitions to get rich-quick on a burgeoning home video porn industry, the young group remain largely unaware of a covetous presence in the farmhouse next door in the form of Pearl (Mia Goth). However, as night falls, Pearl's lustful intent turns violent, with RJ and his crew forced to contend with the horror of Pearl's pent-up emotions.
Between the events of X and Ti West's Pearl prequel trailer shown in its post-credits (for North American audiences only), X's titular killer Pearl is a terrifying proposition. Ti West's X prequel Pearl, which focuses on the origins of this fascinatingly human antagonist, is set to dive further into the warped psyche of this green-eyed character. As a result, here's the X movie killer's backstory explained, including what can be gleaned from the Pearl movie trailer.
Ti West's X presents Pearl as a macabre portrait of aging without grace, with Pearl coveting the youth of the promiscuous group that arrives on the farm. A wizened visage of jealousy, Pearl initially appears incapable of taking care of herself before the X movie's characters realize, to their horror, that she is capable of swiftly dispatching them one by one. This juxtaposition between Pearl's appearance and her spritely actions make it difficult to ascertain how she is actually is in X - with audiences needing the context provided by Pearl to figure out her age. In this way, Pearl's preview trailer shows a teenage version of Pearl growing up amidst the backdrop of the final year of World War II in 1918. Given X takes place in 1979, and Pearl is roughly sixteen in the Pearl prequel, it can be inferred that her character is around 77 years old in X.
While her husband Howard (The Lord of the Rings trilogy's Stephen Ure) initially states that Pearl's envy of the porn crew's hedonistic lifestyle is what awakens her bloodlust, it becomes clear across X's runtime and the Pearl trailer that Pearl was a killer long before the movie's events. Pearl's killing can seemingly be traced back to her childhood, with the Pearl post-credits trailer showing the titular character hacking and slashing at several off-screen characters in fits of rage. Pearl's actions throughout X make it increasingly clear that she is motivated by jealousy rather than anger at her lack of intercourse, with Pearl subsequently coveting and killing RJ's crew out of envy for their youth. These motivations are backed up in the post-credits Pearl trailer, which shows a young Pearl enviously looking at photographs of others before the teaser cuts to quick shots of her hacking at unknown characters. In this way, Pearl has always killed out of jealousy, but the source of her jealousy changes from her original motivations in Pearl to longing for her youth again in X - which paints her as a more tragic figure as a result.
Howard is about as devoted a husband as one is likely to find in X, helping Pearl cover up her murders and staunchly supporting his wife despite her heinous actions. The X prequel Pearl looks set to shed more light on Pearl and Howard's early years as a couple, with one shot in the trailer showing a young Howard returning from war in his military uniform. This suggests Pearl meets Howard at the end of World War I in 1918, although the specifics of their first meeting and subsequent love story are yet to be fully revealed by director Ti West.
Per Bloody Disgusting, Pearl promises to explore how the farmhouse and land where the "massacre of X" takes place was once used as a boarding house during the war. Pearl's trailer already sheds additional light on how Pearl came to own such a large farm at a young age, with Pearl's preview showing the titular character threatening to push her incapacitated mother into a lake. This harrowing clip seems to allude that Pearl does indeed feed her mother to the alligator a-la Bobby-Lynne's death in X, likely pinning her mother's murder on a member of the boarding house to take control of her family's rural estate.
A common theme woven into X's narrative is religion, with several of the film's characters given ties to Christianity and overt biblicisms. Maxine (also played by Mia Goth in X) is revealed to be the daughter of the televangelist preacher playing on the farmhouse TVs, which acts as an additional link between her character and Pearl, who was "exactly like Maxine" in her younger years, while Pearl and Howard themselves are portrayed as god-fearing Christians despite their murderous proclivities. Once again, the Pearl trailer shines additional light on Pearl's warped understanding of religion mixed with her desire to kill, with Maxine's assertion that "I will not accept a life I do not deserve" (a sentiment lifted from Mark 10:15 verses in the Bible) acting as a mirror for Pearl's self-centered approach to desire and sin. Director Ti West goes to great lengths to ensure the characters of Pearl and Maxine share a pertinent sense of duality, and Pearl's religious beliefs are unknowingly echoed by the pornstar Maxine (the daughter of a preacher) is a potent link between the two.
Pearl's trailer teases several big storylines for the slasher character prequel despite its short one-minute runtime at the end of X. The biggest of these is naturally Pearl's transition from a carefree young girl into psychopathy, with the Pearl trailer initially indicating Pearl is happy before a series of grotesque murders appear on-screen (although the reason behind them remains unclear for now). Pearl's first teaser trailer also gives X audiences insight into how Pearl and Howard came to own their farmhouse and property, with Pearl likely inheriting it after feeding her mother to the alligator in the farm lake. Director Ti West has also alluded to the importance of the farmhouse's "Boarding House" in some capacity, which could give a young Pearl a steady stream of victims to access in a post-war climate. Finally, Pearl's trailer confirms the prequel will go into detail on how Howard and Pearl met and explore the twisted relationship that led them to become the vicious killers that RJ and company unwittingly come up against in X.