Pearl

"(A) gorgeous Technicolor nightmare."

"Perhaps I shouldn’t have enjoyed Pearl as much as I did: but it’s clever, limber, gruesome and brutally well acted. A gem."

"As West and Goth attempt to reverse-engineer a psycho killer’s bloody backstory, they diminish both X and Pearl in the process."

"Pearl does hold up on its own, a fun-house-mirror Imitation of Life..."

"One of the year's best films, horror or otherwise."

"It isn’t remotely scary."

"Those who found something to like in the strangely sex-negative X might get something out of this. Or you could just watch an actually good film about ambition and obsession..."

"Mia Goth delivers her best performance yet."

"Goth makes the most of a croaking, lengthy one-take monologue, during which a new horror monster is born."

"It’s... a bit thin and undercooked, but Goth’s performance transcends its limits."

"Goth delivers an electrifying and truly scary performance."

"A prequel that should have been left on the shelf."

"(Pearl) stands on its own unsettlingly odd merits."

"An empty exercise in style masquerading as a character study..."

"Pearl is no gem, despite (a) sterling performance by Mia Goth."

"A fever dream of choreographed dancing, decapitations and Mia Goth carrying the weight of all 100+ minutes."

"It has the ability to reach new heights of self-reflexive pleasure but settles instead for pastiche..."

"Pearl gets a little too close to letting you simply laugh at her. We know she wouldn’t like that."

"If Douglas Sirk made a slasher flick, it would be Pearl."