New streaming on Shudder from IFC Films!
Directed by Meredith Alloway.
Written by Lily Houghton, Meredith Alloway.
Check out the trailer here!
Apple (RIVERDALE’s Lili Reinhart) is the head witch in a coven of witchy women who work at a shop called Free Eden in a mall in Texas. Everyone wants to be Apple and her co-witches Cherry (THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE’s Victoria Pedretti) and Fig (the younger version of Storm from the X-MEN movies, Alexandra Shipp) or be with them as they are the trendiest, most beautiful, and most popular workers in the mall. Enter Pumpkin (Lola Tung) a new hire at Free Eden, who Apple immediately takes a liking to, and takes her under her wing to teach her the ways of witchcraft and the powers of retail. But between dancing to trendy music and wearing the latest fashions, there is a snake in their midst, which means trouble for this new quartet of women.
Don’t believe the ads for this one. Reminiscent of the promotion for the Jordan Peele produced HIM, FORBIDDEN FRUITS was heavily promoted with the name Diablo Cody, the writer behind JUNO, JENNIFER’S BODY, and LISA FRANKENSTEIN, attached to it. But Cody serves as producer for this one and nothing else. So, while director Meredith Alloway and her co-writer Lily Houghton attempt to write the in-crowd banter full of biting wit, hip-speak, and societal commentary, but only succeed in the modern quipping. FORBIDDEN FRUITS is supposed to be a horror comedy, but kind of forgets to be both a horror film and a comedy.
I think the four witches themselves do a good job of being distinguishable, fleshed out characters. I could see all four of the leads being big names some day, but FORBIDDEN FRUITS just isn’t the movie that’s going to do it for them. I did laugh a few times during the beginning of the film, as these girls are shown taking their ingrained set of rules way too seriously. But for a good long while, there really is nothing involving horror going on. I mean, it’s not until the last act is there any carnage or even a spooky vibe to speak of. It’s all about the girls, their relationships with each other, and the relationships they are trying to keep from one another. And honestly, that is the most interesting part of the film. Seeing the way Apple influences her underling witches, preying on their weaknesses and using them to take advantage of them and anyone else in her path; all of that bullying and manipulation—that’s the best part of the movie. It’s the MEAN GIRLS aspect of FORBIDDEN FRUITS that excels. Unfortunately, it’s easy to rip on each other in a catty way, but you can’t make a whole movie just about that. In the end it’s just everyone tossing snarky and ugly comments at each other, which grows tiresome after a while.
As I said, the gore doesn’t even happen until the very last act of FORBIDDEN FRUITS and again, I understand this was done on a small budget and at least they didn’t top load the effects and peter out at the end like many low fi films. But aside from a few scenes where the girls dance around a candle and then talk about a snake in their midst, there’s not much witchy stuff going on either. So much so that one might say that the bad luck that does happen is just that and not some kind of supernatural force occurring.
The main problem is that I think everyone involved were so much into the first hour of this film, developing the conflicts between characters, the fashion stuff, the sex and relationships the cast are having, that it seems they forget about ramping up the story towards some kind of fitting and resonant conclusion. Everything is boiling down to a big conflict between the head witch Apple and the new upstart Pumpkin and while both characters play their parts well, this third act really does them both dirty. It makes none of them worth rooting for and worse than that, once they do go head-to-head, it results in a half-assed slap-fight in the mall fountain with zero stakes and even less electricity. Sure, you get a couple of bloody deaths, but the way everything comes to a close is underwhelming and underwritten.
Add on a mid-credits sequence cameo by a character that has nothing to do with MEAN GIRLS or THE CRAFT, and you’ve got kind of a big, fat, honking mess of a movie that never really knows what it wants to be and changes styles and subgenres like it’s trying on clothes during a shopping spree. Yes, FORBIDDEN FRUITS is MEAN GIRLS meets THE CRAFT but isn’t as good as either of them and only resembles those two flicks on a shallow, surface level. Not a recommend.
