As the bodies pile up, the killer’s MO becomes clear - whoever it is is targeting virgins.
As the town descends into a moral panic, the local student body decides to have a giant party to get themselves off the killer’s list of victims.
Meanwhile, the sheriff’s daughter Jody(Britteny Murphy) follows a trail of clues which could either lead to the killer’s identity, or her own doom…
A cult horror film from the tail-end of the slasher revival of the late 90s, Cherry Falls is a wild ride.
It might not have the meta aspect of Scream, but there is a thick vein of irony running through Cherry Falls that makes it singular.
Sex is a running theme of slasher movies but Cherry Falls takes it to another level.
Outside the antics of the student body, there are the knowing looks between the school principal and his young secretary, the male deputies harassing their lone female colleague.
Most significantly is the oedipal subtext between Jody and her father, played by Michael Beihn.
Every embrace lingers too long, every dialogue exchange carries an undercurrent of unspoken feeling…
In Cherry Falls, everything is layered with an underpinning of lust and hypocrisy.
That hypocrisy is key - when the killer’s MO is revealed to the community, parents react with outrage.
The publicity of killings reveals the undercurrent of misogyny to this town, not just in the parents’ reactions, but in that of the teens.
In order to thwart the killer, they decide to have an orgy. Before this finale, we get an extended sequence in which we crosscut between the girls taking part in a crash course in sexual education, while the boys are shown sitting in a car bullshitting about what they are going to do. One of the film’s best jokes, it lays out the stark divergence in how the different groups view concepts of pleasure and intimacy.
Sex and gender assumptions are an important part of the film’s villain.
It is revealed that the killer’s mother was a teenager who was assaulted by four of the most popular kids at the highschool, including the future principal and Jody’s father. When he was growing up, she rejected him - torturing him for his resemblance to Jody’s father.
The killer dresses as his mother to align himself psychologically with her rage, and murders virgins in order to punish the generation of students who excluded and shamed his mother.
While it is laced with irony the film is effective as a horror movie. Indeed, despite the music and style of costuming, Cherry Falls feels the most like a traditional 80s slasher. The killing sequences are gory and the film’s central chase - as the killer follows Jody through the bowels of the school - is tense.
In the lead role, the late Brittany Murphy is a delight - bringing intelligence and empathy to what could have been a cookie cutter final girl, she is the standout of a solid cast.
Cherry Falls may not have the name recognition of Kevin Williamson’s oeuvre or other slashers from around the turn of the millennium, but it is worth checking out.
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