The Craft. Mean Girls. Heathers. Jennifer’s Body. You’ve seen them all, probably at a sleepover or at the theater with your own coven of bffs.
Forbidden Fruits, a new comedy horror from director and co-writer Meredith Alloway and co-writer Lily Houghton, attempts to join their ranks with a new spin on what it means to belong to a group of young women. In this case, it’s literally a coven of mall witches.
The film follows a group known as the “Fruits,” who all work at the hip store Free Eden at a Dallas mall. Led by head-witch-in-charge Apple (Lili Reinhart), they rule the mall until newcomer Pumpkin (Lola Tung) starts to upend their delicate status quo.
It’s a movie you’ve seen a million times, but with contemporary references and a lot more blood and occult. For some viewers, that will be exactly what they’re looking for.
Forbidden Fruits fully embraces camp and wears its references on its sleeve in gleeful homage. The language and fashion may lean more Gen Z (some of which is already outdated since it was filmed – remember when everyone was doing DIY charm bracelets?), but the pop culture references lean more Millennial (Pumpkin is compared to Andy Sachs at one point).
It also features a stacked cast of actresses who will appeal to younger women from their past work, covering everything from similar camp hit Riverdale to Mike Flanagan’s oeuvre to teen classic Bring It On! Victoria Pedretti plays the ditzy wannabe Cherry, Alexandra Shipp as the secretly brilliant Fig, and Gabrielle Union and Emma Chamberlain appear in supporting roles respectively as Free Eden manager Sharon and exiled employee Pickle.
It’s at its best when it leans into the absurd details like the coven taking sequins instead of drugs or an ongoing gag where the girls must make confessions to Marilyn Monroe. Or when it’s serving up repeatable quotes like, “My job doesn’t define me, my hotness and personality do.”
Arguably, Tung is the lead as her arrival is what propels the conflict of the story, but it takes until the very end of the film to find out her secret motive for joining Free Eden, so it’s hard to connect with her. Apple is not a benevolent leader, but isn’t Pumpkin equally as guilty for using Fig and Cherry for her own purposes?
Ironically, it’s easier to root for villain Apple because at least she knows what she wants and actually cares about uplifting women in her misguided, twisted way. Doesn’t that sum up the current state of feminism anyway?
Pedretti seems to have the most fun as the “Karen” of the group. Cherry is ditzy and earnest and very different than what you’ve seen of Pedretti before (though she may or may not share a little bit in common with her You character Love, no spoilers).
There are certainly times you’ll wish the film had something more to say than “men are bad, but commodified feminism is also bad.” Maybe for a horror-comedy literally set in a mall, that is asking too much, but the shallow, very white feminism does seem like a disservice considering half the leads are women of color.
Where the film goes very right, or also wrong depending on your stomach for gore, is the ending, which features plenty of mutilation and blood. It’s much more graphic and violent than most of the films it will be compared to, which will please horror fans.
There is one death in the ending involving an escalator that may reach the horror movie hall of fame even if the film doesn’t as a whole.
Forbidden Fruits may be surface-level, but it still has enough of a bite to be a good time. Just don’t expect the taste to linger very long.
Forbidden Fruits is in theaters now.