Pearl Movie Ending Explained (In Detail)

The Pearl movie ending explained how Pearl became the slasher killer fans met in X. Only months following the release of Ti West’s X, the director also released its horror prequel, Pearl. Fans met Pearl in X, where she and her husband Howard were an elderly couple living on a farm in rural Texas. However, when a group of young adults show up and want to use their guesthouse, only to shoot a porn movie there, they learn too late that Pearl and Howard are slasher killers. Set 60 years before the events of X, the prequel film follows the titular character in her youth and shows why she became a killer.

Pearl documents the origin of the character (once again played by Mia Goth) and her reasons for killing. Pearl is living in Texas with her parents while her husband, Howard, is fighting in World War I. Hungering for stardom and bitter towards her mother, Ruth, for standing in her way of dancing in the moving pictures, Pearl finally snaps. After her mother tells Pearl that there is something wrong with her, this leads to the first of many murders for the troubled young woman as she kills her parents and a projectionist she slept with. Pearl’s ending sees the titular character in the midst of a breakdown.

What Happens In Pearl’s Ending

Pearl Is Pushed Too Far

After her first murders, Pearl auditions to be in a dance troupe, but the judges reject her outright based simply on how she looks. Pearl later opens up to her sister-in-law, Mitzy, about her guilt-ridden feelings, as well as her murderous actions. She explains that she loves Howard, but she feels the need to sleep with the projectionist because she ultimately feels trapped by the fact that Howard never wanted to leave the farm before going off to fight in World War I.

This left her lonely and starving for attention, wanting nothing more than to leave and start a new life as an actress and dancer. Pearl’s admission freaks out Mitzy, who attempts to leave the farm unscathed. However, Pearl kills her and later prepares a dinner with the bodies of her dead victims, only for Howard to finally arrive from war in shock at his wife’s actions. Pearl’s ending isn’t a shock considering all the people she killed throughout the film, but it does reveal how the eponymous character turned into the bitter and fame-hungry killer viewers know from X.

The Movies That Influenced Ti West’s Pearl

Pearl Shares Surprising Similarities To An Iconic Classic Movie Character

While X drew much of its influence from Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Pearl pulls from another era of Hollywood movies altogether. Ti West pays homage to The Wizard of Oz and Mary Poppins, in particular, as well as the technicolor films from the 1950s. Even the horror film’s font is in the style of films from the era. In terms of The Wizard of Oz, Pearl and Dorothy have certain similarities.

They both live on a farm and end up going to places they never thought they’d go. While Pearl is more obviously violent, the character and Dorothy both feel stuck in a place they don’t want to be — Dorothy in Oz and Pearl on her family’s farm. Both The Wizard of Oz and Mary Poppins are alive with color and Pearl keeps that brightness to juxtapose with the deadly actions of its main character.

Why Howard Stays With Pearl After Returning To The Farm

A Mixture Of Fear And Love Makes Howard Stay

Thanks to X, fans know that Howard decided to stay with Pearl and the couple has been married for a long time. Howard is gone for the majority of Pearl, away fighting during World War I, which is nearing its end at the start of the film. When he returns, he’s well aware that his wife, in his absence, has become a mass murderer. Although Howard clearly looks scared of Pearl, it’s possible he stays with her because he recognizes that she isn’t well.

It could also be he sticks around because he doesn’t want to meet the same fate as his in-laws, who were both killed by Pearl over the course of the film. Fear can drive many people’s actions, and Howard is no exception. There is clearly a lot of love between the pair, and Howard may have felt pity and loyalty towards Pearl. His decision to stay not only protects him from being killed, but he is in a position to keep others away from the farm, far away from Pearl’s killer tendencies.

Pearl’s History Explained: Why She’s So Drawn To Stardom

Pearl Wants To Escape The Simple Life She Is Being Pushed Towards

Pearl hates her life on the farm. She feels it’s a trap; there is nowhere to go and no place to grow. Pearl is essentially stuck where she is, but her heart yearns for more. She thinks she’s special, and it’s this idea, as well as her talent for dancing, that draws her to stardom. Pearl believes she’s meant for something more than being a simple, married woman tending to a farm. Fame represents freedom for her, an escape from her monotonous life.

What’s more, Pearl longs for sexual freedom as well, which is why she’s drawn to the Projectionist, sleeps with him, and climaxes on top of a scarecrow. The horror film showcases how Pearl was deprived of the attention and love she so desperately sought elsewhere, and stardom would have given her that attentiveness, as well as the feeling of being seen and seemingly understood by strangers who could potentially fawn over her and appreciate her talent when no one at home clearly did.

Pearl is also lonely and isolated, with the Spanish Flu making its rounds in the U.S., cutting her off from others even further.

How Pearl Remains A Sympathetic Character Despite Her Horrific Actions

The Idea Of Pearl Being Stuck In A Life She Doesn’t Like Is Heartbreaking

Pearl is a murderer, there is no doubt about that. The character is vengeful and will kill anyone she believes is standing in the way of getting what she wants. In Pearl, what she wants is fame and freedom above all else. However, despite Pearl being a killer, Mia Goth’s monologue in the scene before she kills Mitzy is heartfelt and heartbreaking. It’s easy to feel sad for Pearl, especially since she’s stuck in a place she doesn’t want to be and lost her only ticket to freedom.

The character’s complicated feelings, despair, and need to get away compound with her sense of childlike naïveté to create sympathy. It’s clear Pearl doesn’t quite understand herself and struggles with her actions. She does things out of frustration and anger, but can’t quite wrap her head around the reasons behind her bloody lashing out. Pearl’s actions are nonetheless horrific, but they remain tinged with pity as the character’s desperation for attention and love grows to murderous rampages that cannot be excused.

The Real Meaning Of Pearl’s Ending Explained

Pearl’s Acceptance Of Her Life Is A Terrifying Revelation

At the heart of Pearl is the theme of repression. It’s that which holds Pearl back from leaving her family and farm life behind for true stardom, and it’s what also keeps her from experiencing sexual freedom. Pearl is tied down in many ways — be it through guilt, having been raised in a stern household that values and promotes her repression or loyalty to her absent husband.

After all, Pearl could have gone to California to be in the moving pictures despite being rejected by the dance troupe. It wasn’t her only chance to escape her life, but Pearl sure felt that way. Quelling her desires, and feeling like she can’t break out of the box her life had put her in, ultimately pushes her to anger, frustration, and resentment.

These feelings, in turn, lead to her becoming a murderer, killing the people she feels stand in her way or who somehow prevent her from becoming who she believes she is meant to be. Furthermore, Pearl’s repression, now internalized, is what keeps her on the farm even after she kills almost everybody in her life.

How Pearl’s Ending Connects To X

The Prequel Sets Up A Battle Between Pearl And Maxine

While Pearl came out before X and serves as a prequel to that movie, it is fascinating to watch Pearl first and see how the ending leads into X. Pearl’s deadly obsession with becoming famous sets a foreboding and threatening path for the ambitious main characters of X, a group of adult film actors and filmmakers who are seeking to make a name for themselves by shooting their latest movie on Pearl and Howard’s farm.

Seeing how badly Goth’s character of Maxine in X wants to become a star is a reflection of Pearl herself. In fact, the idea that Maxine perhaps does have what it takes to be a star fuels Pearl’s deadly motivations in X which come from her jealousy of these younger people. While Pearl never did leave the farm and seek out a career in show business, it is revealed that Maxine did run from her similar upbringing and is doing what Pearl was never able to do.

Howard is also made a more interesting character because of X. It is clear that he helped cover up Pearl’s murders at the end of the prequel and has been doing it ever since. After Pearl kills RJ (Owen Campbell) in X for refusing her sexual advances, Howard decides to kill the rest of the filmmakers to cover for his wife. Lorraine (Jenna Ortega) later finds a naked man being held prisoner in the farm’s basement, suggesting Pearl has been keeping sex slaves. It is a twisted revelation of what their marriage has evolved into.

How Pearl’s Ending Connects To MaXXXine

Ti West’s Third Movie In The Trilogy

While Pearl and X came out within months of each other, the third movie in Ti West’s franchise was longer in coming to theaters. This movie is MaXXXine, and it brings Mia Goth back as Maxine, from the movie X. Maxine kills Pearl when she drives over her head as she escapes. Pearl had fallen and broken her hip, and Maxine was relentless and wanted Pearl dead after all she went through. There are also parallels between Maxine and Pearl, as shown in the Pearl movie ending.

While Pearl wanted to find stardom in movies, she saw those dreams come to an end and took it out on those around her in murderous ways. Maxine also wanted to become a star, and it was her opportunity to be in a pornographic movie at Pearl’s farm guesthouse that ended up ruined with everyone around her dead.

MaXXXine sees the titular character of Maxine still working in the adult film industry, trying to get her big break in the acting world outside of that, as murders pile up. Seeing Pearl lose control of her emotions and kill people when she finds people blocking her dreams, it was expected that MaXXXine would follow suit, but the movie does throw the audience a little bit of a curve ball by bringing the real-life killer the Nightstalker into the storyline as well as Maxine’s estranged father.

How The Pearl Ending Was Received

Pearl Was Overwhelmingly Loved By Critics

Critics overwhelmingly enjoyed Pearl. In fact, critics of the movie did not single out the ending as good or bad, but instead, examined the overall horror package of the movie, enjoying the way it fits into the larger trilogy. The Guardian called the movie “clever, limber, gruesome and brutally well acted. A gem.”

Mia Goth’s performance in the movie especially was praised. She earned comparisons to Shelley Duvall in The Shining. Her performance helped the movie to be named the best horror movie of 2022 by several outlets, including Daily Grindhouse. Goth won best actress or best lead accolades at the Stiges Film Festival, the Critics Choice Super Awards, and the Fangoria Chainsaw Awards for the movie.

There was only one downside for critics. Most negative reviews of the film made reference to the movie’s Wizard of Oz nods. Slant Magazine, for example, felt that the numerous references to The Wizard of Oz lacked any “follow through.” Others, however, saw those references as a love letter to classic cinema in the middle of a horror story about a woman who longed for the spotlight.

Overall, the ending of Pearl was received well by critics and audiences alike largely because they went into the movie knowing it was a prequel for X and hoping for more of Mia Goth’s impressive performance.