Pretty Little Mallrats

Is there a better place to set a horror movie than a shopping mall?

I thought not. 

Quick Plot: Apple, Cherry, and Fig are the mean girls of the mall. They have perfect hair and unreasonable shoes, exactly what's needed to front the boutique Free Eden. Down one employee, Fig sees potential in an Auntie Anne's knockoff sample girl and not just because she's named Pumpkin.

The hiring process isn't quite traditional. Having never worked retail, I could be wrong about this, but I don't think most apparel saleswomen are required to drink a blend of fruit and panty juice served in a boot before being locked overnight in a mall. 

It seems to work. Pumpkin joins the staff and quickly infiltrates what is, most definitely, a coven of witches (even if the dim Cherry isn't actually aware of that). Apple runs a tight ship: no boyfriends, strict schedules, and the occasional ritual. Basically, trust exercises for Mean Girls. 

Sadly, as most coven-based movies have taught us, these kinds of tight female cliques are never unsinkable. Pumpkin has her own motives in dismantling their power dynamic, which proves all too easy when Fig has found love and Cherry has, well, a lot of extracurricular needs that don't line up with Apple's ideals. Meanwhile, Apple seems haunted by her own mysterious past. Free Eden doesn't seem to have many retail seasons left.

Based on screenwriter Lily Houghton's play and co-written and directed by Meredith Alloway, Forbidden Fruits is the kind of stylized Starburst pack of movie that will likely be insufferable for a certain contingent of moviegoer. It's not a surprise when Diablo Cody's name shows up as a producer. If overly accessorized young women speaking in their own pop-heavy vernacular hurts your ears, then give this movie a pass.

For the rest of us who see Cher Horowitz and Jennifer Check as icons, Forbidden Fruits is equally fun and frustrating. The core cast is pitch perfect, with all four of the leads understanding the balance between human being and caricature. They go a long way towards making this something special, which might be why I found myself a little more disappointed than lesser films.

See, Forbidden Fruits reminds me quite a bit of Mona Awad's hit novel Bunny. Both present similar female friend groups -- early 20s, incredibly beautiful, incredibly toxic -- in a darkly comic vein of witchy misanthropy. What stinks is that in both cases, there's such a deep, ugly cynicism about the actual possibility of female friendship amongst this kind of woman. For as deep as these friendships seem to be at first glance, it takes just one interloper to tear them apart from within. 

It's just a bit of a bummer.

Forbidden Fruits has enough of a third act plot twist that it can somewhat justify the need to have these women (literally) at each other's throats, but it does still feel like a miss in that regard. There's a sense that each of the female characters have full agency underneath those false eyelashes, but the idea that they can ever share it with one another seems to not even be on the table. 

Still, I can't say I didn't enjoy Forbidden Fruits. Alloway finds the perfect aesthetic and makes great use of her mall setting, particularly in the film's final act. I laughed a LOT, and not just because of -- 

High Points

What do we have to do to make Victoria Pedretti a star? She makes such fascinating, off the wall choices in every role she plays. Her voice as Cherry is so different from what we've heard in You or The Haunting of Hill House, tight and mannered yet somehow also spacey. Everything that comes out of her mouth is hilarious but also shockingly earnest. How does this woman do it and why don't we celebrate it more?

Low Points

Some of the gore at the end is, you know, a tad silly

Lessons Learned

No fate is worse than having to name your son Bob

When you don't fit in in high school, you learn a lot about state birds

There's an art to folding chino pants

Chekhov's Law of Escalators, the Stiletto Addendum

Obviously, one does not flirt with the dangers of wearing sharp heels on a moving stairway in Act I if one will not pay off such a move in Act V. This was based on a play, after all

Rent/Bury/Buy

If it sounds like I'm hard on Forbidden Fruits, it's probably because this is the kind of movie I want to unabashedly love. It doesn't quite get there for me, but I still had a fantastic time. Find it on Shudder when you're in the right mood.