Cherry Falls

 

It's like American Pie mixed with Scream and a sprinkle of A Nightmare on Elm Street. The problem is it's like all those movies if they were edited for television. Cherry Falls has great inversions of the typical tropes of the slasher genre. The high school setting is great and you really feel like the location is real. It has the more glamorous look to the high school characters and the sets like most post-Scream slasher movies. While the killer reveal is quite predictable, the backstory isn't and is quite interesting. Interestingly enough the backstory and the prior evil within the story fit in with sociopolitical happenings of recent years and the me too movement. While it is a sanitized and censored version of what it could be Cherry Falls is still a fun, innovative, and memorable slasher movie. 

Synopsis: A small-town sheriff, Brent Marken (Michael Biehn), discovers the presence of a serial killer in his sleepy hamlet. Since the perpetrator has been targeting only virgins, both male and female, the deaths cause panic in much of the local high school population. Sheriff Marken's daughter, Jody (Brittany Murphy), is among the potential victims, since she has yet to sleep with her boyfriend, Kenny Ascott (Gabriel Mann). Can the lawman stop the killer before he goes after Jody?

The movie starts with two people, Rod and Stacy getting killed while on a sexcapade in a car. Rod is doing this amusing nerdy alien role play trying to seduce her. The opening kill is one of those we've seen before where the killer appears in front of the car and Rod goes out to investigate. Rod gets slashed a bunch of times, you hear it but don't see anything besides a little blood. It does have one of those suspenseful reveals where Stacy is in the car in silence and Rod suddenly pops up. The killer breaks in and kills her. The killer is someone with long black hair and a gray streak. 

The scene then transitions to Kenny (Gabriel Mann) and our main character Jody making out in a car. Kenny out of left field says he wants to break up when she doesn't want to have sex. Jody's mother (Candy Clark) comes out and starts heavily flirting with Kenny, or rather he flirts with her. This is the start of one of this movie's odd identities. Characters, regardless of age difference are always either flirting with each other or there is some sexual tension in every scene. It gives this movie a weird identity and kind of feels like a parody of the hypersexuality seen in other slasher movies. We are inroduced to Sheriff Brett Marken (Michael Biehn) as he sneaks up on Jody in her room as she was out past the curfew he set for her. Biehn is delightful in this film bringing his usual authentic feel to authority figure roles and giving this character a depth. He looks like a real sheriff handling the gun and wearing the uniform. No surprise Tarantino decided to cast him as the Sheriff in Planet Terror.

Stacy's delightfully funny gay friend Timmy is introduced and he tells her that Rod and Stacy were killed the night before. The next scene is similar to the fountain scene in Scream that introduces all the relevant high school characters and you see their character types and quirks based on their reactions to the killings. Just because of this scene and others, using process of elimination you can probably find out who the killer is just by their relevance within the film not necessarily making sense to the rest of the story. In a scene in the cafeteria one boy is confronted by a girl he had made up rumors about. This girl, Annette is later killed at her house. There is some good suspense here where the killer seems to disguise his voice as that as a vulnerable woman who needs help so Annette opens the door. The killer then then smashes her neck into the door. Again, a relatively tame kill, though the aftermath is a little bloody. The word "virgin" is found carved into all three victims' legs. Sheriff Marken calls a town meeting at the gym that Jody and Timmy attend in a separate hallway. Marken says that all three victims were virgins. This is an ingenious plot twist to usual slasher motives and tropes.

A chase through the school ensues and I love the sequence where Jody throws a bunch of glass at the killer in the science room. It reminds me of Scream where the killer is vulnerable and a bit of a doofus because they are human. Timmy is killed and in the quite possibly the most graphic effect in the movie you see his throat slit in the aftermath of the kill. Again good suspense with his body in the locker. Jody gets away from the killer and does a police sketch. Brett is immediately seen as suspicious of the sketch. Who is this killer and why? 

Spoiler Section

I actually find the backstory more interesting than the reveal. In a movie before the me too era it is interesting to have a main authority figure in a slasher movie be the real cause of the prior evil, and to be a rapist. While the movie doesn't necessarily redeem Brett's character he seems to at least have understood what he did. This also seems similar to things that happen in real life though as he was the star athlete and was going on to a bright future and the people who knew covered it up. While I enjoy Jay Mohr as the teaher in this film it is obvious he is the killer. I mean just using process of elimination, it's like the character of Randy's mother in Scream 2 where why are they there if not to be the killer? 

Originally the kills were supposed to be much more brutal and violent. This movie got an NC-17 rating and never got distribution so the cut version was telecast on the USA Network. At the end with the orgy there was supposed to be a much more graphic orgy rather than the slow dancing and kissing. I could've done without that. The kills though could have been much better. I really like how realistically awkward both the high school crush scenes are where characters who like each other can't talk to each to save their own lives, and the sex scenes are even more awkward. Jody and Kenny specifically have quite an awkward scene though I find it to be realistic that when Jody becomes the more dominant one Kenny is no longer interested. I mentioned earlier that the movie reminded me of Nightmare on Elm Street really for a couple of specific reasons. The sheriff and his wife are separated, the mother/wife is a drunk, and she explains the backstory of the parents' sins being the reason for the prior evil and killer's motivation. 

There are so many scenes in this with sexual tension or hypersexuality. Not just all the teens talking about it and doing it toward the end of the film. The principal and his secretary give a look, Jody and her father while sparring give a lingering stare, Jody always seemingly flirting with her teacher, the Sheriff and his deputy always giving looks. It's odd but again it adds something to this movie that other movies don't have. The final chase is great. The kill where the killer kills the one cop near the house with the axe is good. I enjoy Brittany Murphy in this. While I've never found her to be a drop dead gorgeous woman she exudes a type of attractiveness and charisma on screen. I like how her character is shown to be curious and interested in her sexuality and still is the final girl. I also really like the look of the killer and I think he/she may have been more influenced by J-horror ghost movies from the time with the long hair and all. 

SLASHER MOVIE ANATOMY:
• Prior Evil: Woman gang raped and the local town covers up the offense
• Body Count: 8
• Whodunit: yes, and you do you care because the killer is someone you see. Some are whodunits but you don't necessarily care if you don't know who their characters are until the end (See Friday the 13th).
• Mask or outfit: Long Hair
• Locale: High School and Town 
• Best Kill: Axe kill to the cop

INSTRUMENTS OF DEATH

• Knife
• Gun
• Axe

CHARACTER TROPES:

• Final Girl: Jody
• Authority Figure: Sheriff Brett Marken
• Class Clown or Joker: Timmy

SLASHER MOVIE TAXONOMY
• Kingdom: Movie
• Phylum: Horror
• Class: Slasher
• Order: Post-Scream
• Family: No Nudity
• Genus: Realistic
• Species: Meta and somewhat satirical

Rating: 7/10

Trivia: Michael Biehn wasn't interested in the movie after reading the first 15 pages saying it was just another slasher movie. His agent convinced him to keep reading and he liked the satirical approach so he signed on. 

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGdlArQiXFo