Pearl, a prequel to horror film X about porno films, shocks and delights

Pearl is a rare example of a horror film considered worthy of showing at a major film festival.

MIa Goth in Pearl

Pearl (MA15+)

In cinemas

Three stars

One of the better horror films released last year was X which riffed on The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Psycho with its lurid tale of a bunch of porno filmmakers who, while making a sleazy movie titled The Farmer’s Daughters in rural Texas in 1979, fall victim to a sexually frustrated old woman named Pearl (Mia Goth, under a pile of makeup).

Ti West was the writer-director and now he’s back with Pearl, a prequel set just over 60 years prior to X, and a rare example of a horror film considered worthy of showing at a major film festival when it played out of competition in Venice last September.

Set on the same farm in 1918, this gothic movie centres on the young Pearl, a repeat performance from Goth, who also co-scripted the film with West.

Pearl is a young woman who, as the film unfolds, becomes increasingly deranged thanks perhaps to the stifling upbringing she’s received from her strict German-born mother, Ruth (Tandi Wright), and her invalid, speechless father (Matthew Sunderland). Her husband, Howard, is away fighting in Europe and the lonely, frustrated, troubled Pearl longs to escape this confined environment and become a dancer like the ones she sees at the local picture palace, in films like Palace Follies — I wasn’t entirely persuaded that such a film, presumably a musical, would be screening in cinemas a decade before talkies arrived, but let that pass.

Early in the film Pearl demonstrates her malevolence by killing a goose with a hay fork and feeding the corpse to the alligator that lurks in a nearby pond — a durable creature that was still lurking in the pond all those years later in X. When her pretty sister-in-law, Mitsy (Emma Jenkins-Purro) tells Pearl that the local church is auditioning for dancers, she sees a way out of her restricted surroundings.

Meanwhile she has befriended the (unnamed) local cinema projectionist (David Corenswet) who shows her a French porno movie prior to seducing her, not that she needs much encouragement.

But later the cad rejects her, so he meets the same fate as the goose.

Goth is very effective as this unbalanced character, so much so that, despite her murderous disposition, you somehow find yourself in her corner — just.

And the film — handsomely photographed by Eliot Rockett (partly in New Zealand, as was X) and with a florid music score by Tyler Bates and Tim Williams — is gripping throughout.

“There’s something missing in me that the rest of the world has,” says Pearl in a moment of self-awareness; she certainly lacks a moral compass, but, as fans of X well know, she’s going to get away with murder for a very long time.

It’s not necessary to have seen X before you see Pearlbut if you’re a fan of this kind of movie it might be fun to see the further adventures of the murderous heroine at a later date or even in a double bill.

With a title like Meet Me in the Bathroom you might be forgiven for anticipating a raunchy sex comedy. Far from it.

This documentary, made by Dylan Southern and Will Lovelace and based on a book by Lizzy Goodman, is a celebration of the new wave rock bands that emerged in New York — Manhattan and, later, Brooklyn — between 1999 and 2004. Aimed squarely at fans of the music, the film obviously won’t be to everyone’s taste.

In the wake of the glam rock of the 80s and the grunge of the 90s, there were those who thought rock music, that started in the 50s with Bill Haley and the Comets and Elvis Presley, was over. But then bands like The Strokes kicked off what became known as indie Rock, which was a return to guitar-based rock. The Strokes were pioneers of a movement that became a little confusing when major record labels began signing “indie” (independent) bands, but The Strokes and other influential bands like The Rapture, Yeah Yeah Yeahs (featuring vocalist Karen O) and LCD Sound System (featuring James Murphy) made an impact.

Some independent feature films of the early 2000s – among them Juno (2007) – incorporated indie rock on the soundtrack. Yeah Yeah Yeahs were important for being one of the very few bands with a female vocalist.

These bands were popular and influential because they fused dance and rock music in a way that was new and fresh. They used synthesisers, keyboards and elements of dance and electronic music as well as drums and guitars to satisfy rock ‘n’ roll purists.

All the previously-mentioned bands and vocalists feature in Meet Me in the Bathroom, quite a good deal of which is comprised of material shot on old VHS tapes, while some of the footage is clearly composed of amateurishly filmed home movies. This does not make for a visually pleasing film — far from it — but of course the music is the thing.

Some scenes resonate strongly. One of the highlights is the footage of New Year’s Eve in Times Square as 1999 gives way to 2000 and some of the revellers fear the end of the world is nigh, while President Clinton expresses his hope for the new millennium. Also potent are the scenes filmed in 2001 on 9/11 as we see some of the rock stars wandering, dazed, through the littered, dusty streets. The move from Manhattan to Brooklyn, which soon becomes gentrified and thus unaffordable, marks another phase in the evolution of the music scene.

It’s pretty clear that most, if not all, of these musicians are invariably stoned, yet in spite, or because of that, they manage to give electric performances either on their home turf or when they travel on enthusiastically received overseas tours.

Meet Me in the Bathroom — I leave it to the reader to decide on the significance of the title — is not my kind of movie or my kind of music, but in its own energetic way the documentary is quite compelling. I am indebted to my grandson, Nathan, for giving me a crash course on the subject of new wave rock.