Film review: Cherry Falls (2000), directed by Geoffrey Wright

Reviewed: 13 March 2004
Summary: Utterly stupid and far too predictable
 
THIS MIGHT CONTAIN SPOILERS.

OK, let me start by saying this film truly is a piece of crap. My standards aren’t all that high, but this was awful. The story is dull and unbelievable and ridiculously predictable. It didn’t take a brain surgeon to know who the killer was after less than half an hour into the movie. It was blatantly obvious from the first time you saw the killer in action what to expect from the rest of the film. The only reason I didn’t change to another channel was that I wanted to see my theory being proven. Which it was.

Excess violence didn’t make it better, even though I’m sure that’s what the film makers thought. Blood-splatter all over the screen isn’t my idea of an intelligent thriller. Quite the contrary. “We can’t think of an interesting plot, so let’s have blood everywhere and carnage and killing! Yeah!”

And the plot holes! Good grief! The killer goes after virgins only, which is what the whole film is about. Yeah, and how does the killer know who to look for? Do kids in Cherry Falls walk around with big signs on them saying “VIRGIN” or what? “The girls were virgins because their hymens were intact” – reality check here, everyone: that you’re supposed to be able to tell if a girl’s a virgin or not by looking at the hymen is nothing but a stupid myth. It’s not a lid.

There’s so much I could say about this film, but I think I’ll save it for now, since another thing I want to have a yell about is a definite spoiler, so I won’t go into that here.

My advice: Don’t waste your time watching Cherry Falls. If you want blood-splatter, gore, a homicidal maniac, an innocent girl caught up in it all, and some supposed humour – watch Scream instead. I don’t particularly fancy that one either, but at least it’s better than this.

1 out of 5 popped cherries.