How X and Pearl made slasher movies uncomfortable again - The A.V. Club

But using the past to subvert familiarity and create discomfort feels revolutionary in 2022, and revolution is exactly what filmmakers Ti West and Mia Goth have achieved with X and Pearl, companion films released six months apart by studio of the moment A24.

West reimagines morally bankrupt porn stars, sleazy producers, and a generally filthy and cynical ’70s landscape, instead introducing audiences to a group of ambitious young filmmakers who just happen to make porn.

For West, age masks more interesting realities that challenge our pop culture-influenced ideas about past decades, the people who occupied them, and the values and perceptions that shaped their choices.

Where X highlighted the hidden beauties of the ’70s, Pearl holds a microscope up to the ugliness of the 1910s, reminding viewers that a century venerated for its cultural growth too frequently achieved progress through blood, violence, and sickness.

With MaxXxine, the recently announced third film in West and Goth’s collaboration, the filmmakers will presumably take the opportunity to break conventions associated with the ’80s and further challenge our collective memories of the past, including the parts we’ve chosen to overlook for the sake of our own comfort

Ti West and Mia Goth have not only made slashers uncomfortable again, but have modernized slasher franchises by making each entry unique—not simply cobbling together entries from the carcasses of their forebears, but sorting through the viscera of filmmaking and history itself for something that cuts significantly deeper