When students in the town of Cherry Falls hear that a serial killer is targeting virgins, they realize that the only way to protect themselves is to begin planning a "Pop Your Cherry" party.
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Reviews
Fresh and Exciting
There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes
The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.
It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.
The slasher genre never got a tune up quite like it did with Cherry Falls, a tongue in cheek satire that while hilariously high concept and silly, can actually be pretty frightening, especially during it's intense climax. Here's the premise: Cherry Falls is a small town in Virginia that has fallen prey to a masked serial killer. The twist? Said killer is only targeting virgins, which causes quite the uproar. As the high school kids all scramble to get laid before they get laid six feet under, the prudish townsfolk become unhinged and disgusted by the whole affair, and a decades old secret involving some of the town's best and brightest comes to light, a scandal to rival tr sleazy parade of flesh this murderer has set into motion. Young Jody Markum (Brittany Murphy) has yet to have her cherry popped, and fears for life in between bouts of teenage angst. Her father (Michael Biehn), who also happens to be the town sheriff, wrestles with demons in his past, as well as his own. A schoolteacher (Jay Mohr) scours the town archives for clues before it's too late. And every horny adolescent tries to desperately get their freak on, providing some of the funniest moments you'll see in a fright flick. Gymnasium orgies, rampant fornication and all kinds of naughty antics ensue. Nothing beats the faculty meeting where parents violently argue as to who has the sluttiest offspring. Full of in jokes, innuendo and sly sexy humour, this is one of the great overlooked horror comedies out there.
CHERRY FALLS is one of the many knuckleheaded slasher films to come out in the wake of Wes Craven's SCREAM, and it's a particularly pitiful effort for the genre. All of the old, tired clichés are dragged out here and treated as if they're fresh and exciting, even if they go through the same old routines time and again. There are stalk 'n' slash sequences, scenes of the heroine fighting off a vicious attacker, and more of the brain-dead high school speak than you can shake a stick at. The one difference about this film is that the killer targets virgins rather than those who are sexually active; in films such as the Friday THE 13TH series, it's usually the lascivious ones who die first. However, this twist makes not a jot of difference to the film itself and indeed its done away with by the time the climax rolls.This film has one of those glossy looks that are manufactured to hide imperfections in the story. There is no real plot here, so to speak of, just one of those old 'past comes back to haunt' origins for the villain that used to be good in the likes of THE BURNING. The film's indebted to PSYCHO in a big way, but whereas Hitchcock's thriller was taut and superlative, this is just flat and lifeless. It feels like nothing more than a cast and crew going through the motions to pick up a pay cheque afterwards.Brittany Murphy used to be one of the most irritating actresses in Hollywood, although she seemed to have mellowed by the time I saw her in SIN CITY. I hoped her turn here would be like the one in the latter film, but no: it's like the one in DRIVE instead, all throaty vocals and high-pitched squealing. It's really bad. Other than the unremarkable teenage cast, the only familiar face is Michael Biehn playing the town sheriff. This is the kind of role that anybody could have filled and there's nothing of the humanity that Biehn brought to the likes of Reese in THE TERMINATOR and Hicks in ALIENS here. CHERRY FALLS is a film singularly devoid of motive, intent, terror and suspense; in short, it's pants.
Well, although it already has a few years he had never even heard of this film teen horror, but when I saw the name of the sadly now deceased Brittany Murphy, actress who always had and still has for me a special magnetism finally decided checking out.The film begins well enough, with the murder of a couple, a classic in the genre, about to lose her virginity, and maintains an interest and atmosphere more or less to half of the film, which unfortunately has started to deflate both attention and pace to reach a climax pretty weak in my opinion.It has some qualities like atmosphere and made some suspense, the presence of Murphy and Michael Biehn, a scene of self-defense when they practice exercises and left me a little confused when it is stretched over it, I know your but I noticed something odd about the pose and expression of both, finally, they may be my imagination, anyway both do a proper performance before the cameras, the inevitable air that gives the film Scream, and generally an acceptable development of the plot, although this is losing strength as it moves ,.But that can not cover the fact that she has a history caught by the hair, with very few murders and gore if not almost nothing for my taste, a murderer who causes anything but fear and a really weak climax, ¨ the course Hymen Holocaust, which is more light than I've seen in a horror film, and I have seen few precisely.A film that seems to promise something strong and distinct but falls just into something acceptable and entertaining in which the filmmakers never really get to dive into the pool despite playing with an idea and concepts with which if could have echo, remaining as in So a suggestive in some points but routine and predictable in the rest slasher.
In the small Southern town of Cherry Falls(no, really), someone starts murdering high school students, with the only clear pattern being that they were virgins. Jody(Murphy, R.I.P., using her accessible beauty and genuine nature to draw us into a lead that's frankly underdefined) tries to beat her father, Sheriff Marken(Biehn, honorable, pained and trying to keep his loved ones safe... does he ever play anything else? That's not a complaint, I love his roles), to discover the truth: Who is behind this, and is the only way to stay safe, to, well, "give it up"? This is not a comedy, firstly. The trivia section mentions a "satirical slant" to this, which I fail to detect. Sure, the convention is that a pre-marital screw is painting a bullseye on your back, and this wants to mimic Scream in being ironic and post-modern. It misses why that film(and to an extent, its initial sequel... and if you want to be charitable, the recent fourth entry) worked; points were made, the self-awareness was used to express both criticism of, and love towards, the slasher subgenre.There is nearly nothing funny(it's excessively dark and nasty in its attempts towards such, for no discernible reason) in this. If it at least had something to say about sexuality and culture, but it falls prey to the prejudices(those being slutshaming and "guys just wanna get laid") that it... wants to mock? If that's even what it's trying. It's not helped by the script sharing the same lack of maturity and strained, repressed(and thus aggressive... rather than natural) relationship with coitus as the caricatures(seen, for example, in almost all of the dialog revolving around it, it being what primarily defines the characters).Beyond that, this is serviceable. It's reasonably fast-paced(then again, it is also only 83 minutes sans credits, or 88 with), with the plot progressing smoothly enough. Acting is good, and there are some potentially effective moments on accout of that. Certainly, the leads are well-cast, playing to their strengths, as I've already gone into some... and deserving mention is the teacher Leonard Marliston(Mohr, using both his disarming charm, and his passionate monologing - the latter seen early, when he chides his class for being heartless in discussing their deceased peers... mirroring the audience's reaction. Huh. Was that intentional?).This is suspenseful and tense, as well as, at times, creepy. There are many scares throughout(proper ones, that lead to something... not the Platinum Dunes "people have ADD, we have to make loud noises and do dream sequence fake-outs" kind of crap), to keep a sense of danger. The death scenes are creative enough, without getting over-complicated, or going into torture porn. They do suffer from over-censoring, so if one is interested in this, hopefully an uncut version will be available. The climax is a letdown. While the twist makes decent sense, it does leave questions that it really had no need to.The DVD has a trailer, which spoils some of movie. There is a bit of strong language, violence and sensuality, little of it graphic, in this. I recommend this to fellow fans of the people in front of the camera. 5/10