Martin Scorsese hails new horror movie Pearl

Martin Scorsese has lavished praise on the horror movie 'Pearl'.

The legendary filmmaker has revealed that he found Ti West's slasher film both "mesmerising" and "wild" and confessed that he had trouble sleeping after watching the flick.

The flick stars Mia Goth and is a prequel to West's slasher movie 'X'. It had a world premiere at the recent Venice Film Festival.

In a review sent to A24, Scorsese said: "Ti West's movies have a kind of energy that is so rare these days, powered by a pure, undiluted love for cinema.

"You feel it in every frame. A prequel to 'X' made in a diametrically opposite cinematic register (think 50s Scope colour melodramas), 'Pearl' makes for a wild, mesmerising, deeply – and I mean deeply – disturbing 102 minutes.

"West and his muse and creative partner Mia Goth really know how to toy with their audience... before they plunge the knife into our chests and start twisting."

The director – who has helmed classic films such as 'Taxi Driver' and 'Goodfellas' – added: "I was enthralled, then disturbed, then so unsettled that I had trouble getting to sleep. But I couldn't stop watching."

Scorsese hasn't always been as complimentary about other films, however, as he once branded Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) blockbusters as "amusement parks" rather than true cinema.

The 79-year-old director said: "The value of a film that's like a theme park film, for example, the Marvel type pictures where the theatres become amusement parks, that's a different experience.

"As I was saying earlier, it's not cinema, it's something else. Whether you go for that or not, it is something else and we shouldn't be invaded by it.

"And so that's a big issue, and we need the theatre owners to step up for that to allow theatres to show films that are narrative films."