Trapped on her family’s isolated farm, Pearl must tend to her ailing father under the bitter and overbearing watch of her devout mother. Lusting for a glamorous life like she’s seen in the movies, Pearl’s ambitions, temptations, and repressions collide.
Ratings
Curator score: 6.8/10
IMDb: 7.0/10
Letterboxd: 3.70/5
Rotten Tomatoes: 93%
Metacritic: 76
TMDB: 7.2/10
Director
Ti West
Production
A24, Little Lamb Productions
Cast
Mia Goth, David Corenswet, Tandi Wright, Matthew Sunderland, Emma Jenkins-Purro, Alistair Sewell, Amelia Reid, Gabe McDonnell, Lauren Stewart, Todd Rippon, Grace Acheson, Shaman Theron
Curator Review
Verdict
A stylized, character-driven horror film that turns repression, envy, and performance into a grotesque origin story. Mia Goth’s central performance and Ti West’s glossy, feverish period style make it stand out well beyond a standard slasher or psycho-killer setup.
Best for
Viewers who like psychological horror with a strong lead performance
Fans of period pieces with a lurid, artificial sheen
People drawn to character studies about repression, ambition, and breakdown
Audiences who enjoy campy, darkly funny horror that still lands emotional beats
Skip if
You want straightforward scares over mood and performance
You dislike heightened acting or theatrical monologues
You prefer restrained realism to stylized genre excess
You are not interested in violence framed through an art-horror lens
Overview
Pearl is less interested in jump scares than in watching a lonely, frustrated woman curdle under pressure. Set against a sunlit farm that feels both quaint and rotten, the film builds its horror from isolation, sexual frustration, and a desperate hunger for escape. It plays like a twisted backstage melodrama where the dream of stardom keeps colliding with domestic decay.
Worth noting
Mia Goth gives the movie its voltage, balancing vulnerability, vanity, and volatility in a performance that keeps widening until it becomes terrifying. Ti West leans into old-Hollywood gloss and Technicolor brightness, which makes the violence and emotional collapse feel even more uncanny. The result is a horror film with real personality: funny, sad, and increasingly unhinged.
Bottom line
It will not be for everyone, especially if you want your genre films lean and punishing. But for viewers who like psychological descent, performance-heavy horror, and a strong sense of style, Pearl is one of the more memorable modern entries in the genre.
Top Letterboxd reviews
hollie amanda (4★) · 54555 likes
the director yelled “cut!” but mia goth heard “cunt!” and just went with it
Emma 🔆 (4★) · 27387 likes
Babe wake up, new A24 dinner monologue just dropped
lauren (4★) · 26866 likes
a six minute monologue with no cuts about cheating on your husband and confessing to several murders >>>>
1974 · Horror · 1h 23m · R · Curator 7.2/10 (937.5K ratings) · Where to watch: Amazon Prime Video, Peacock Premium, Philo, Shudder, Amazon Prime Video with Ads, Peacock Premium Plus
For the rural nightmare atmosphere and the sense of a decaying American landscape turned monstrous.