Mia Goth, iconic scream queen and rising star, has been on her way to becoming one of the iconic figures of modern horror cinema in recent years with A Cure for Wellness, Suspiria, Pearl, and, lastly, Brandon Cronenberg's Infinity Pool. However, despite her devoted performance in acclaimed pictures, the British actress has not won an Oscar or a prize at a film festival of a similar scale.
The critically acclaimed Pearl director, Ti West, wants that to change, not because he cares about the Oscars, but because Mia Goth deserves better. Instead, the director said to The Independent:
''I don't really care about the Oscars. It would be dishonest to say winning an Oscar wouldn’t be awesome. I’m sure it would be great, but if it matters all that much to you, inevitably that’s going to make your life a downer. In my opinion she deserved it, but at the same time, I don’t feel that it takes anything away from what she did. Oscar would have just been a nice addition.''
Pearl is a slasher film, and the storyline follows a young woman in 1918 who lives on a farm with her handicapped father and overburdened mother and whose husband is off at war. The young woman on the brink of madness pursues stardom in a desperate attempt to escape the drudgery, isolation, and lovelessness of life on her parent's farm.
The Academy Ignores the Horror Genre, Says Ti West
Many filmmakers, media outlets, and actors such as Mia Goth criticized the Oscars' indifferent attitude towards horror, and Ti West is one of the last to join the critics. West stated that the Academy's stance on the horror genre was deliberate and, therefore, difficult to take them seriously.
''It depends on how seriously you take something like the Oscars. If you take it very seriously, then maybe you’ll notice that a certain kind of movie isn’t there as much, but also maybe the Oscars see themselves as more about movies that are representing a different message in a way. It’s hard to say.''
West said that after various movies failed at the box office due to Covid-19 and other existing problems, Hollywood's approach to small films began to be negative, and existing franchises were preferred over original stories.
''The thing that everyone always complains about is Marvel movies, but there will be something else after Marvel that people love and hate at the same time. That’s just how it goes. To use Marvel as an example, they’re not in that business [of telling original stories]. They’re going to keep remaking Spider-Man because that’s their thing, so that is unfortunately going to drown out some other things due to the scope of those movies. But they were never in the business of doing some small original story thing. Anyone in that business has been in the minority for some time, so it’s not new.''
A24's Pearl is now available to stream.