Horror Films: Through the Looking Glass - Part One- CHERRY FALLS
But lo, what light through yonder window breaks… ‘tis this weeks movie, and I am the East. Or something. Anyway, when all hope seemed lost and the slasher film carcass looked pretty well picked over, the movie CHERRY FALLS emerged to pump fresh blood through the genre’s withered veins. Oh man, do I love this movie! I hate to steal other writer’s quotes, but the video editor of Entertainment Weekly summed it up best when he described this movie as, “A slasher film as directed by David Lynch.” Where other movies spend their time ripping off SCREAM, this one goes off on it’s own weird path, bringing to the table weird sexual tensions, intra-parental violence and TERMINATOR’s Michael Biehn! Not to mention the best killer/killers to be seen in a movie since forever.
This is the plot… The sleepy town of Cherry Falls, Virginia is the kind of place to raise a family; Nice, quiet and peaceful. Unfortunately it’s also the kind of town that is frequented by serial killers in movies such as this. Teenagers start dying, but there’s a twist. In every horror movie, starting with the immortal classic HALLOWEEN, which of these two girls winds up saving the day… the party girl who has all the sex or the sweet innocent virgin??? If you picked the virgin, you’d be right. The party girl who has all the sex would get a carving knife to the gullet by the thirty-minute mark. However, CHERRY FALLS flips this rule of slasher film dogma on its ear. You see, the killer in this movie goes after VIRGINS!!! Hahahah…. Isn’t that great!?!? It’s such an obvious twist and yet, NO ONE has done it. So the kids of the movie find this out and realize that sex is the only thing that can save them. In our day and age this movie is delightfully unrestrained by societal norms and it makes for great entertainment. Now, this movie would be nothing more than a good idea if it weren’t for the fantastic-yet-subtle direction of Aussie Geoffrey Wright, a man known mostly for directing the absolutely brutal film ROMPER STOMPER. He adds so much to this film, so many creepy/funny additions that it’s hard to keep track. Bolstered by a laugh-and-gasp-out-loud script by newcomer Ken Seldon, CHERRY FALLS is absolutely the best slasher film since scream. Oh, and I should also point out the flawless performances, especially
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