Martin Scorsese has said he was “enthralled” by Ti West’s horror film Pearl.

The A24 slasher is a prequel to West’s film X released earlier this year, and premiered at the Venice film festival last month.

According to Slash Film, Scorsese has shared his admiration for West’s work and Pearl in particular, saying he “couldn’t stop watching”.

“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,” Scorsese’s statement reads.

“A prequel to X made in a diametrically opposite cinematic register (think 50s Scope color melodramas), Pearl makes for a wild, mesmerizing, deeply — and I mean deeply — disturbing 102 minutes.”

He added: “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. I was enthralled, then disturbed, then so unsettled that I had trouble getting to sleep. But I couldn’t stop watching.”

West told IndieWire about the idea for Pearl earlier this year, saying he used Douglas Sirk melodramas and Mary Poppins as influences for his horror.

“If X is about the way this auteurist era of independent filmmaking is affecting people, Pearl is sort of about the old Hollywood way that affected people,” West said.

“The way in which they enrich each other is all a part of the craft of the filmmaking. I wanted to do something where all of the crafts of the movie were their very apparent charms.”

Pearl was in US cinemas on September 18, while a UK release date is yet to be confirmed.