The stars of Forbidden Fruits hit up the shopping mall food court.
Forbidden Fruits merges Mean Girls with The Craft
Forbidden Fruits is a movie that definitely falls into one of the most specific subgenres out there — shopping mall horror.
The mall has been a backdrop for numerous horror movies, from Dawn of the Dead to Chopping Mall to Phantom of the Mall: Eric’s Revenge. The gimmick automatically turns a movie into an instant period piece, sort of a time capsule of when it was made. what are shopping malls, after all, other than temples of commercialism and pop culture ephemera?
Meredith Alloway’s Forbidden Fruits isn’t a “retreaux” ’80s throwback, however. Indeed, it’s set in the modern day and definitely takes full advantage of our current societal trappings. Everybody drinks boba tea and wants to be an Instagram influencer and uses Gen Z slang that I’m not even sure the writers of the film completely understand. There’s definitely a pronounced Jennifer’s Body vibe undergirding the entire movie — hardly a surprise, considering Diablo Cody herself is one of its producers.
Forbidden Fruits is a very straight-forward movie. Lola Tung plays Pumpkin, a perpetually bored food court employee who draws the attention of Apple (Lili Reinhart,) the mysterious queen bee of a generic women’s apparel store called “Free Eden.” As if that name wasn’t a dead giveaway, try hitting up the website “Shop Free Eden” at your convenience.
I don’t think I’m spoiling anything when I say that Apple and her coworkers are members of a secret coven, complete with ceremonial weed smoking and an abstruse ritual involving blood, rhinestone boots and confessions inside a changing booth at a lululemon stand-in. Most of the humor is derived from cohorts Cherry (Victoria Pedretti) and Fig (Alexandra Shipp), who pretty much feel like they were plucked out of a never-produced Clueless remake from circa 2016. It’s a very dialogue and character-interaction driven movie, which makes sense since it’s actually based on a Lily Houghton play called “Of the woman, came the beginning of sin, and through her we all die.” My condolences to whoever had to put the full name on the theater marquee.
This is a film that doesn’t hide its obvious inspirations. Everybody describes this as The Craft meets Mean Girls and yeah, that’s right on the bullseye. I also picked up a bit of a John Hughes vibe every now and then. I get the feeling that the people who made this movie watched Pretty in Pink and Sixteen Candles A LOT when they were teenagers.
You know how this one obviously has to play out. It might start like a story of Wiccan sisterhood, but it’s only a matter of time until things go awry due to good, old-fashioned jealousy. Alas, the film doesn’t really take a plunge into full horror territory until nearly the one-hour mark of the movie. But when things get wacky, they get VERY wacky in this one. And quite, bloody, too — without giving away too much, let’s just say this movie has some of the best escalator-driven body horror since Troma’s Terror Firmer and leave it at that.
Since it’s a tongue-in-cheek satire, the characters aren’t as fully fleshed out as you might expect. You just KNOW some characters are only in the movie to get killed off while others are only in the film for a few minutes. The whole film essentially boils down to the rivalry between Apple and Pumpkin, and I guess I don’t need to tell you how this one ends. The final 20 minutes of this movie is BONKERS, with machetes flinging and fisticuffs flying in a fountain. And there’s an obvious sequel hook, but what movie — regardless of the genre — DOESN’T have one of those nowadays?
I can imagine certain audiences are going to enjoy this one more than others. It certainly leans more towards comedy than horror until the final act and a lot of the plot twists are VERY telegraphed. It’s a movie that feels like it’s catering to the made for Netflix horror market — it feels like the Fear Street movies and The Babysitter, if not thematically than certainly aesthetically.
Forbidden Fruits has a built-in audience and they’re sure to enjoy this one. Fans of grimmer, darker and more serious horror movies, though, may not be as receptive. But if you’re looking for a horror movie where everybody has great manicures and cute matching Yeti cups — and aren’t too offended by the occasional immolation or decapitation — you’ll probably really dig it.
GIVE IT A WATCH IF YOU LIKE: Heathers, techno remakes of Bryan Adams songs, going to Hot Topic but never buying anything
Director: Meredith Alloway
Writers: Lily Houghton, Meredith Alloway
Starring: Lili Reinhart, Lola Tung, Victoria Pedretti, Alexandra Shipp
Runtime: 103 minutes
Language: English
Distributor: Independent Film Company, Shudder
Release Date: March 27, 2026