"cinema" by Do u remember is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.
In 2022, A24 came out with two movies that centered around women living parallel lives. X and its prequel, Pearl, were truly groundbreaking as horror films, but each in their own way. This year, another installment, MaXXXine, was added to the series that deepened and reaffirmed the themes Ti West has been attempting to tackle. When I binged the three films with my friends, our conversation consistently circled back to the same question: which movie is best? Our answers were ever-changing depending on our point of focus. What I want to do, then, is rank the movies in the trilogy based on different qualities.
For overall storytelling Pearl takes the cake. The movie is wholly concerned with telling Pearl’s narrative and her struggle to flee the family farm. Although all three movies are horror films, Pearl is certainly the most psychological; the horror is found in the idea that there is no escape from her monotonous life. MaXXXine comes in second. This installment is a thriller mystery with strong classic slasher inspiration. MaXXXine works to tie up loose ends, and in this way is very in depth with its storyline in a way that Xjust was not. X did tell a story, but being the first installment, there were elements not yet expound upon that left the viewer confused and unable to fully appreciate the story being told. I think upon a second watching I could certainly appreciate it more. However, overall, I do think X is the most shock-factor-based film of them all; the movie really just did not pick up until bodies started dropping in the last 30 minutes.
Each movie is entertaining in their own way, but MaXXXine is the most traditionally entertaining. Like I said, it’s a thriller mystery, and it really keeps your attention the whole time. Pearl also kept my attention for the entire run even though I was falling asleep (I had watched it right after X, late at night) I really enjoyed the heavy focus on this utterly unhinged girl trying, fruitlessly, to get away from her family’s farmer. But that is less conventional. Then, as I said above, X does not pick up until the murders occur; There is certainly a story being told, but it's not very engaging in my opinion.
X indisputably has the most gore simply because it has the most characters and almost all of them die--but they all die in brutal ways. Each death was incredibly unique, not just within the film, but within, I would say, the scope of horror films. The deaths were creative and attention-catching for sure, not reliant on tropes. MaXXXine also had a considerable amount of gore, but far less characters died even though the plot revolved around a serial killer on the loose. Really, MaXXXine is the most balanced of the three movies, handling gore, entertainment, and storytelling without overplaying any one element. And finally, Pearl, although not without gore in the slightest, is much more of a psychological horror, and so we see less gore and feel more overall dread and sympathy for our main character.
Ranking the three films on personal preference, I would put them in this order: Pearl, MaXXXine, and finally X. I could not get enough of Pearl’s life. I loved watching her stubbornly try to fight the odds, and although it was sad to see her ultimately fail, the thematic resolution was satisfying. MaXXXine was just a really fun watch--the murder mystery was handled well because there were no moments where I was able to uncover the killer based on tropes, and that always sours a horror film in my eyes. X, although it is last on my list, was still a good watch. It was interesting being the introduction to this trilogy. A mountain of questions was raised, and slowly over the course of the series were they answered.
This trilogy was a fascinating watch, and if we had not started so late at the night, we would have binged it all in a single night. All of Mia Goth’s characters (she played Maxine, young Pearl, and even old Pearl) are incredibly engaging; I always found myself rooting for Maxine and Pearl, even when they were absolutely unhinged.
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