Cherry Falls (2000)

In the small town of Cherry Falls, a psychotic murderer is killing off the virgins of the local high school.

Director:

Geoffrey Wright

Writer:

Ken Selden

Stars:

Brittany Murphy, Jay Mohr, Michael Biehn

1 win & 1 nomination.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Brittany Murphy	...	Jody Marken
Jay Mohr	...	Leonard Marliston
Michael Biehn	...	Sherrif Brent Marken
Jesse Bradford	...	Rod Harper (as Jesse Watrouse)
Candy Clark	...	Marge Marken
Amanda Anka	...	Deputy Mina
Joe Inscoe	...	Tom Sisler, Principal
Gabriel Mann	...	Kenny Ascott
Natalie Ramsey	...	Sandy
Douglas Spain	...	Mark
Bre Blair	...	Stacy Twelfmann
Kristen Miller	...	Cindy
Michael Weston	...	Ben
Keram Malicki-Sánchez	...	Timmy
Joannah Portman	...	Sharon

Storyline

A psychotic serial slasher starts a bloodthirsty murder rampage at Cherry Falls high school that only kills the local high school virgins. This leads to the local teenage population organising a sex party in order to lose their virginity and thus no longer be targets...

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Plot Keywords:

high school | virginity | slasher | sheriff | father daughter relationship | 

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Taglines:

At Virgin High... it's put out or die.

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Genres:

Horror | Mystery | Thriller

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Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated R for strong violence/gore, teen sexuality, language and some drug content

Details

Official Sites:

Filmax [Spain] (Spanish) Go For It [Netherlands] (Dutch)

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

25 August 2000 (UK)

Also Known As:

Cherry Falls - Asesino de vírgenes

Filming Locations:

Dinwiddie, Virginia, USA

Box Office

Budget:

$14,000,000 (estimated)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Rogue Pictures,Fresh Produce Company,Industry Entertainment

Technical Specs

Runtime:

92 min

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

The film received two nominations for Best Picture and Best Director at the Sitges Film Festival in Spain, Geoffrey Wright finally taking the prize.

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Goofs

When Jody is talking to Leonard Iveston, the word Byron is wiped out on the board behind them in the close up shots. When the camera goes to the long angle where most of the classroom can be seen, Byron is chalked onto the board again.

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Quotes

Students: Hail, Hail, Virgin high, drop your pants its fuck or die!

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Crazy Credits

The closing credits roll down instead of up.

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Alternate Versions

The movie had to be re-cut five times in order to achieve an R-rating. Most significant cuts include:

• graphic sexual activity during the climactic orgy sequence;
• The death of a character named Annette The originally scripted scene showed her having her throat slowly pushed onto a pane of glass. The scene was filmed and very brutal, done all in one graphic cut. However, she shot was later replaced with her character's head split open in the front door. That scene was still trimmed heavily. In unrated versions the top of her head erupts and a splash of blood flies across the doorjamb.
• Rod's death had more blood.
• Timmy's death was an on screen kill that featured gruesome spurting blood.
• A character's death at the climatic orgy was nixed for time and MPAA constraints. A male character's throat was slashed open.

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Connections

References Batman (1966)

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Soundtracks

Fader
Performed by Drugstore

User Reviews

Passable teen horror but a little muddled

A teenage couple is killed while making out by the lake in small town Cherry Falls. A further murder points the police to suspect that someone is killing virgins. While the towns' teenagers prepare for a sex party to protect themselves, the sheriff's daughter, Jody Marken, follows a clue that may unmask the killer and her motives.

One of the spate of `knowing' teenage slasher movies, Cherry Falls got some publicity from it's twist on the usual horror cliché that `sex = death'. Pointed out in Scream, whenever you have sex in a horror movie you mark yourself out as a victim, however here the twist is that virgins will die and those having had sex will live. The film is quite enjoyable and has the odd tense moment, but quickly falls into line with every other horror cliché in the book – right down to the big twist over the killer's identity and, true to Scream, it's a big leap!

The film is a little modern ironic but doesn't get much mileage out of it. More interesting to me was the angle that, in this day of AIDS and STD's, those HAVING sex were actually protected while those saving themselves and being careful were actually risking death. I'm not sure if this angle was thought of when making the film but it didn't get any significant air time or comment – I guess the film only wanted to be ironic or post modern if it didn't involve any thought or effort. That said it still sort of works, even if it doesn't really stand out from the rest of the teen slashers (but then, what does?).

The cast are so-so. Murphy is OK in the lead and Biehn is a familiar face as her father. Jay Mohr has a small role but happily isn't awful. The rest of the teens tend to fall into high school stereotypes of jock, nerd, joker etc and only really serve to be victims rather than characters. There are no really gory moments but there are lots of quite cruel ones which happen just offscreen but are no less horrific for it.

Overall the film is OK but can't really do anything intelligent with it's unique twist. I knew it was clever to do things like this, but the film gets no mileage out of the wider ideals (AIDS etc) and quickly falls into being a standard teen horror movie complete with shadows, twisty end and so on. Still worth a watch if you like this sort of stuff but it really could have been better than this.