Cherry Falls

Everything about this movie is a little “off”– but in a good way! When a daughter hugs her dad for a little too long, it makes you wonder. When a secretary announces a guest to the principal, and gives him that little extra gander, you wonder some more. And when a mom and daughter kiss on the lips as a sign of affection…well, you know you’re in the TWIN PEAKS world of horror movies, with every little sexual nuance taking on so much more resonance (think AMERICAN PIE meets SCREAM), as the film’s killer is apparently out to whack VIRGINS ONLY!!!

Have a blast.

A great premise and definitely one which mighta sprung the “teen slasher” dive of the past year into a small upswing, but unfortunately for many of us, the MPAA apparently slashed this movie so much, that the filmmakers didn’t even bother releasing it on screens in North America when all was said and done. It did however find a home on cable TV, and now in your local video stores, so if you want to check out a pretty nifty twist on the ol’ slasher genre, rent this movie and enjoy the cherry fun.

Granted, the DVD that I saw obviously had a lot of blood/gore/killings missing from the action, but the film STILL worked on various levels. First off, and most importantly, the story was interesting. How cool is a killer who only wants to whack out those who haven’t gotten laid yet?!? Pretty funny (like they don’t have enough problems!). There’s also the whole “style” and “feel” of the picture, which is set in a small town, with lots of strange small-town shit happening all around. I especially dug how everything was so colorless, grey, brown and drab. So lifeless.

The actors were also very good here, especially Michael Biehn, who holds this thing together as the sheriff who stands firm. There are also a few surprises, especially the whole bit about the killer, which I thought was a little more refreshing than the idiotic “motives” that we’d been hearing in garbage like URBAN LEGEND. Although I will admit that I did “pick off” the killer about 10 minutes into the movie, but it still didn’t ruin it for me.

I enjoyed the film on its own, liked the whole “pop your cherry” party, which was an orgy organized by the high school kids, so that they wouldn’t be the next victims, dug the killings, although there should have been more (and according to the Arrow’s original SCRIPT REVIEW HERE, this thing was packed with a lot more blood and sex!) and definitely liked all of the characters, even Jay Mohr, as the geeky teacher.

Overall, this was an original flick with a new twist on an old genre, plenty of quirkiness and some believable characters. Not the best slasher movie that I’ve ever seen, but definitely one of the better ones to have come out in the past few years and certainly one of the more stylish. It’s too bad that we weren’t able to see it in the theatres or see the version that was intended by the director in the first place. Bummer.

(c) 2021 Berge Garabedian