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Heads up! This piece contains MASSIVE SPOILERS for the movie Pearl. We kindly “axe” that you see the movie first and come back to read this after.
We all know the story. The story of little Dorothy Gale and the adventure she has when she’s whisked away to the wonderful land of Oz. The Wizard of Oz is one of the most timeless pieces of American literature ever produced, and the 1939 film adaptation remains one of the greatest (and most frightening) films of all time. This has caused numerous filmmakers of all genres and backgrounds to be inspired by the classic story in different ways over the years. Ti West brings it to a whole other level with his new film Pearl, the prequel to his slasher movie X that tells the story of the titular character and her descent into complete madness.
The film is littered with parallels calling back to the classic 1939 film The Wizard of Oz, showing how the fairy tale story can be used in a different context to what we’re used to. Right off the bat, the aesthetic and filmic style choices call back to the era of technicolor filmmaking. Technicolor is a process of filming color movies that dates back to 1916 and uses a three-strip system in which a modified camera would capture footage through different color filters (typically red, green, and blue), and be processed separately so that each strip would “print” various colors onto a finished print of the film. The result was a vivid display of color not commonly seen in this era of filmmaking, though one film in particular became famous for its use of the process: The Wizard of Oz . Pearl pays tribute to this by using a vivid color palette of bright reds, greens and blues, visually evoking the spirit of The Wizard of Oz.
From here we’re introduced to Pearl (Mia Goth), a lonely farmgirl who lives a quiet life on her family’s farm. She helps take care of her invalid father and is chastised constantly by her overbearing mother, Ruth. She dreams of a better life but her husband is fighting in World War I and her predicament has her with no place else to go. Pearl is a mirror image of Dorothy Gale from The Wizard of Oz (right down to the pigtail braids) . In that film Dorothy lives on a farm with Auntie Em and Uncle Henry and dreams of someplace “over the rainbow “ to escape the mundane life that she leads.
Pearl then rides into town on her bicycle to fetch her father medicine. When she gets to town we’re presented with a whole different world than the one Pearl is accustomed to. There’s music playing and people freely living their lives, and Pearl’s troubles melt away with an escape to the movie theater (with a side of micro-dosing). While here she also meets the projectionist (David Corenswet) of the theater she frequents (more on him later). This runs parallel to the iconic scene in The Wizard of Oz where Dorothy is whisked away to the land of Oz. From the muted, drab palette of her sepia tone world to a technicolor fantasy only possible in dreams.
As Pearl heads home she by happenstance is led into a corn field that is home to a scarecrow that oversees the field. Curious, Pearl begins seductively talking to and dancing with the scarecrow, ultimately leading to a scene where she plays out a sexual encounter with it and imagines the face of the projectionist before having a violent outburst informing it that she’s married. Ashamed of what she’s done she heads back home with the scarecrow’s hat in tow.
The scarecrow’s design is obviously very much inspired by the design that was used on actor Ray Bolger in The Wizard of Oz. A noted dancer while he was alive, the filmmakers gave his character a dance number when he was introduced and Pearl repays the favor by having them share an intimate dance. Something to note is that the 1939 film’s script has an ending scene where the Scarecrow’s human counterpart, Hunk, leaves for agriculture college and Dorothy promises to write to him, implying a romantic connection.
After a visit from Pearl’s mother-in-law and sister-in-law, Misty (Emma Jenkins-Purro), she learns of a local troupe that’s holding auditions for their traveling show. Seeing this as her opportunity to escape her provincial life, she confronts her mother about auditioning for the dance troupe. Her mother has a violent outburst in response and talks about how she sacrificed everything to take care of Pearl’s father, including her dreams and goals. The argument reaches a boiling point when Pearl fights with her mother over the fireplace and mom’s dress ignites, setting her ablaze. Acting fast, Pearl proceeds to throw water on her screaming mother, enveloping her in a cloud of smoke, and throws her down into the cellar to die. This is the scene where we see Ruth evolve from the Auntie Em stand-in to a twisted metaphor for the Wicked Witch of the West, complete with a recreation of the climatic scene where Dorothy throws water on her and kills her in the process.
Pearl runs away into the arms of the Projectionist at the theater where they share an intimate love scene, despite her being married, and he also promises to take her to Europe. The next day he offers her a ride to her house so that she can prepare for her big audition. When he hears Pearl’s mother in the basement he confronts her and eventually catches her in a lie and decides to leave, suggesting he has no interest in seeing her again despite their quickly developing romance. Feeling scorned, Pearl snaps and proceeds to stab him in the heart, submerging his body (and car) in a nearby swamp. The Projectionist is a cold, heartless bastard in Pearl’s eyes, the movie’s twisted version of the Tin Man who infamously has no heart. She gets revenge by destroying his heart. It’s important to acknowledge that he’s the only character who shares any sort of intimacy with Pearl, an act usually only reserved for those in love.
In the final act, Pearl dons one of Ruth’s dresses – a long red dress as a twisted subversion of Dorothy’s iconic short blue dress that she wore when she visited Oz – and heads to her audition. After not getting the part in the troupe, Pearl and Misty head back to the farm where Pearl breaks down and confesses everything she’s done while also revealing her resentment for her husband for abandoning her and heading off to war. The dance troupe was to Pearl what the hot air balloon was to Dorothy, total wish fulfillment and an escape to the life that she deserves. Frightened of her confession, Misty attempts to leave as Pearl confronts her about making the dance troupe and not telling her. Misty in this scene could be viewed as being evocative of The Wizard of Oz‘s Cowardly Lion in her fearfulness of Pearl, and her hair also feels to be a nod to the curled locks that the Cowardly Lion sported in the original film.
After brutally murdering Misty with an axe, Pearl vows to “fix everything” and assembles the corpses of her parents at the dinner table to show that in her mind, things can return to normal despite everything that happened. Howard arrives home from war to find the rotting corpses in the dining room and Pearl donning her farmgirl look from the beginning. Knowing what we know from X , she never leaves the farm. Doomed to spend the rest of her days in a mundane existence and not living the life she felt that she deserved. At the end of the day Pearl realizes…
“There’s No Place Like Home.”
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I was 12 years old in 1998. My family rarely went to the movies, but I begged my mom to take me to see Halloween H20. Loaded up on popcorn and soda, I settled into my seat and readied myself for what was promised as the final showdown between Laurie Strode and Michael Myers. Even now, I can recall the swelling energy in the theater and the way everyone screamed and laughed in all the right places. And how the triumphant finale sent a wave of applause and cheers through the crowd. It was and is one of the most special theater-going experiences of my life. When Laurie chopped off Michael’s head, it was a victorious moment for the audience as much as the character. It was the definitive ending to a series that had lost its way.
Twenty-four years since its release, Halloween H20 remains the perfect ending to the Michael Myers trifecta: the 1978 original, 1981’s Halloween II , and H20 . Even though Halloween Resurrection undoes every bit of good will of that ending, we don’t talk about Dangertainment and Busta Rhymes drop-kicking The Shape. Or the lead protagonist Sara (Bianca Kajlich) unable to scream on her own. Or that outrageous bit of exposition about Laurie Strode, the intuitive and strong Final Girl, killing the wrong man. We don’t talk about any of that. Halloween H20 is a fitting end to the story. The classroom scene, in which Molly (Michelle Williams) details how Victor Frankenstein “should have confronted the monster sooner” to save Elizabeth, is inherently Laurie’s entire three-film arc. To save her son John (Josh Hartnett), she finally recognizes that the only way to move forward is to defeat the monster once and for all. And she does so in one of the best third act showdowns in horror history. Her triumph is pure cinematic poetry.
With Halloween Resurrection turning 20 this year , we’re coincidentally getting another series ending. As a long-time franchise fan, I’ve been burned too many times to count, yet here I am failing to temper expectations heading into what should be the very last Halloween film. But I would be remiss if I didn’t express reservations I have about the final film in David Gordon Green’s legacy trilogy. Before I dive into my greatest hopes and fears, I should mention I had the great misfortune of stumbling upon rumors and/or potential spoilers for Ends . I won’t post those here; they’re all over the internet if your curiosity is piqued. Let’s just say I have qualms that we may have another Resurrection-level debacle on our hands. Now, I am in the minority in that I have come to only marginally enjoy Halloween 2018 and I * loved* Kills for how bonkers it was.
Halloween Ends looks cool on paper but could be totally botched in execution. With the release of the final trailer, we get a proper glimpse of the story and how Corey Cunningham (Rohan Campbell) fits into the overall picture. Dropped a mere 17 days before the film hits theaters, it’s very clear producers are keeping their cards incredibly close to the vest. It’s a far cry from the marketing campaigns for the 2018 and 2021 films. It both has me trepidatious and sufficiently intrigued about what Green has in store for this final chapter. In the trailer, Laurie considers that the only way for Michael Myers to die is if she dies, too, a possibility that circles back to the notion of fate in the original film. Answering her teacher, Laurie remarked that author Costain believed “fate was like a natural element, like earth, air, fire, and water.” Ever since Laurie stepped upon the front porch of the Myers house, delivering a key, her fate has been forever tethered to Michael’s, so it stands to reason that she is right in believing their deaths are bound together, as well.
The official film synopsis gives further context to the upcoming storyline. It reads: “Four years after her last encounter with masked killer Michael Myers, Laurie Strode is living with her granddaughter and trying to finish her memoir. Myers hasn’t been seen since, and Laurie finally decides to liberate herself from rage and fear and embrace life. However, when a young man stands accused of murdering a boy that he was babysitting, it ignites a cascade of violence and terror that forces Laurie to confront the evil she can’t control.”
My immediate concern is a four-year time jump. Questions running through my head: Why has Michael vanished? What has he been up to? And will Karen’s death have any impact on the present? Originally, David Gordon Green planned to have all three of his films set over the course of one night, which made the most logical sense from a storytelling perspective. However, it seems the Covid pandemic and mask mandates caused a ripple in plans and sparked rewrites to the story.
“So not only do they have their immediate world affected by that trauma, having time to process that trauma—and that’s a specific and immediate traumatic event in the community of Haddonfield. But then they also had a worldwide pandemic and peculiar politics and another million things that turned their world upside down,” Green told Uproxx back in 2021. He suggests that lingering pandemic effects, including masks, may influence the storyline.
While Kills didn’t include any explicitly political aims or subtext, the Tommy Doyle-led riot at the hospital did strike eerily similar to the January 6 insurrection. Even more, Michael Myers himself embodies white male fragility and violence against women, and through her own trauma and turmoil, Laurie Strode emerges as a defining Final Girl with real Good for Her energy at every single turn. Otherwise, the franchise has largely skipped socio-political topics and themes, letting the story and characters sink into subtext and deeper personal readings. Ends involving a pandemic-related storyline raises an eyebrow at the very least.
And the biggest fear I have is the film not giving the audience a definitive answer to the fates of Laurie and Michael. Where the previous two entries gave us heavy breathing over the end credits and a surprise attack, respectively, there needs to be nothing to indicate Michael could still be alive and kicking. Whether Laurie lives or dies could carry weight either way, as long as there is reverence for both characters as the horror icons they are. In previous timelines, the franchise has a way of unceremoniously killing off its Final Girl within the first 20 minutes of a new film to make way for fresh characters. Halloween 5 killed off Rachel with scissors to the collar bone; Halloween 6 filleted Jamie on farm equipment; and Resurrection tossed Laurie off a building. Stop with the madness. Let’s give these characters the care they deserve. No heavy breathing, no eyes opening, no hand twitching, and absolutely, unequivocally no mysterious disappearance. Michael Myers needs to be sent to hell where he belongs.
That brings up an important question: how do you kill Michael? You can’t very well chop off his head again. So what do you do? Here are some options: sever all his limbs; drowning (ala Friday the 13th Part VI); a pendulum or rack torture device; crucifixion (the Biblical imagery practically writes itself); blowing up with explosives attached to his body; cryogenically freezing his head (remember what Randy said about trilogies in Scream 3?!?); lethal injection; electric chair; extreme bloodletting (think: Mrs. Alves in Halloween II ); and both Laurie and Michael dying by an all-consuming fire. The optimist in me hopes for any one of these to be the final blow, to be the thing that destroys evil for good. (I’m currently leaning toward blowing him to smithereens.)
And Laurie needs to be the one to do it. She deserves to pull the proverbial trigger on killing The Boogeyman. This final reckoning requires balls-to-the-wall action; a real Halloween H20 on steroids moment. Judging from the trailers and TV spots, David Gordon Green appears to be heading in that direction. I’m hoping there’s drawers full of knives and fire extinguishers and axes and flag poles and a smorgasbord of other random objects. Anything can be a weapon .
With this final chapter, all bets are off. Here are a couple other things I’d love to see, including some good ole fashioned stalking sequences, blue-tinted lighting, and a reliance on shadows. But more importantly, Allyson should have a leading role in the story. She got ample screen time in Halloween Kills , but take that one step further, as she teams up with Laurie one last time to hunt The Shape. Perhaps there’s rumors of Michael reappearing in a ghost-like form on the outskirts of Haddonfield (drawing upon John Carpenter’s original vision for Halloween 4). Even in the trailer, Laurie claims he was watching her one evening but quickly evaporated. Let that be the guiding force behind Laurie’s growing paranoia, eventually leading Allyson to finally believe her. They grab a couple shotguns, hop into a truck, and head off to kill Michael, Kill Bill-style.
Regarding Allyson, what’s the emotional toll been like for her, having not only lost three close friends but both parents? What’s her mental state? Has she recovered? Or does she find herself cold and detached from others in her life? Is she broken and barely getting by? We’ve seen what 44 years of trauma has done to Laurie Strode, transforming her into a shell of her former self, and maybe Allyson has, in fact, moved on with her life. She’s made a determined effort not to repeat cycles of behavior handed down from her mother and grandmother, and instead, she lives a fulfilled life. These character beats, as they did with Halloween 2018, could really boost the usual slasher ho-hum.
Above all else: give us a finale worthy of this franchise, and let Laurie Strode give Michael Myers hell until the bitter end. Halloween Ends has the opportunity to be among the best in the series, and already, the sense I get from all the promo materials is the creative team taking this final chapter seriously. That’s a good sign. Coming off Kills , and how it was eviscerated by critics and fans, David Gordon Green certainly has his work cut out for him. Having grown up with this franchise, and endured some terribly grim lows, I have sky high expectations 一 and I just hope they get this right. Halloween H20 ’s Laurie Strode deserves it.
Halloween Ends is coming to theaters and Peacock on October 14, 2022.
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