Or “The Worst Abstinence PSA in History”

Director: Geoffrey Wright
Cast: Brittany Murphy, Michael Biehn, Gabriel Mann, Jay Mohr
Screenplay: Ken Selden
91 mins. Rated R for strong violence/gore, teen sexuality, language and some drug content.

Quick, everyone! There’s a killer on the loose and we all have to have sex!

The mostly sleepy town of Cherry Falls has become home to a serial killer, one that seemingly targets virgins. Sheriff Brent Marken (Michael Biehn, The Terminator) is doing his best to uncover the identity of the killer before he claims the next victim, but as the bodies continue to pile up, the students including the Sheriff’s own teenage daughter Jody (Brittany Murphy, Clueless) start to learn that the only way to stay safe if to pop the cherry, so to speak.

Slashers have been plentiful since their inception; they are, almost by definition, cheap and relatively easier to produce in a short time. With that, a lot of filmmakers have dabbled in the horror genre, and it seems like every type of slasher has been done, so when a movie like Cherry Falls plays with form by specifically having its killer target virgins, it’s almost shocking it hasn’t happened more often, like a tired-out trope. Slashers have frequently been the butt of jokes in that having sex gets you killed, and only the pure final girl can survive the killer’s wrath (this has actually been kind of disproven, but it’s still a marker of the subgenre). Now, you have a town of hormonal teenagers who believe the only thing that can save them is getting their rocks off. It’s a more interesting turn than I expected, that one change actively makes Cherry Falls stand out significantly from the pack.

More than that, Jody is a capable final girl, and Brittany Murphy really owns the lead role here with a much more nuanced characterization than I would’ve guessed. She’s torn by the situation, now alone following a breakup, and she’s not ready to have sex, but it may be the only thing that can save her, so does she betray everything she feels in her heart and mind and just offer it up to whoever will take it, or does she stand strong? This internalized conflict makes the film more about consent than just simply sex, and how that consent if being robbed of her if she wants to live. There’s almost a sexual assault by fear paradigm happening throughout, even if the screenplay doesn’t dig in enough to really layer the narrative.

Beyond that, the killer makes their presence known earlier than expected, and there are a handful of solid chase scenes and young talent peppered through the movie. Michael Biehn even lends a gravitas to the entire thing, and it all actually works, despite the film’s faults, including a somewhat leaner and less grisly film that doesn’t always get the camera on the carnage, likely due to the film release being shuttered and moved over to the USA Network, cutting out some of the classic slasher slicing and dicing. It’s also a bit repetitive and, outside of Jody, a lot of the surrounding teenagers are flatly written archetypes.

Cherry Falls has an interesting hook that should’ve been further explored, but what we get is still an effective and lean thriller with a body count and a few interesting questions for after the movie ends. While it still falls into some traditional genre trappings that have been overdone, what works here is the concept and lead players who make the mystery more exciting than anticipated.

3/5
-Kyle A. Goethe