I love a good slasher movie, especially an early-aughts slasher movie. Give me Shredder. Give me Urban Legend. Just a bunch of hotties running around in some high-concept setting while a masked maniac hunts them down. It’s so simple, the merging of horror sensibilities with an Agatha Christie whodunnit, and it’s a formula I don’t ever anticipate getting tired of. Movies like Thanksgiving and Heart Eyes adroitly target those early aughts sensibilities, though nothing is quite as good as the real deal.
There are plenty of blood-soaked gems from the era, including many that were unfortunately plagued with production woes. Everyone knows the story of Wes Craven’s Cursed, which is, effectively, a slasher movie with werewolves, though there’s another infamous example of a lost slasher gem. While it’s been reclaimed, some key scenes remain lost to time, resulting in one of the most interesting, though incomplete, slasher movies ever made. Just in time for Valentine’s Day, why not take a trip down to Cherry Falls, now streaming on AMC+.
Per AMC+: A sexy horror film with a twist: this slasher only kills virgins, not promiscuous types as parodied in Scream.
Cherry Falls, starring the late Brittany Murphy, is a delight. It’s campy, scary, and cleverly subverts expectations in a way many post-Scream slashers failed to do. It’s not enough to just be ironic—that irony has to mean something, and in Cherry Falls, it does. Of course, the slasher’s cult following is no doubt on account, at least in part, of how much of the movie seems to be missing. Censorship troubles led to a delay and ultimate television release on the USA Network, and since then, several graphic death scenes (and an orgy) have been absent from the available prints. They were filmed, but no one has been able to secure them.
Even with the clear excisions, Cherry Falls is still a great time. It’s very much a turn-of-the-century slasher movie, what with its red herrings and melodramatic final reveal, but there’s an undercurrent of grunge there too few slasher movies had. In a retrospective several years ago, our own Tyler Doupé wrote, “Unlike many of the flicks that tried to cash in on the mega-success of Scream, Cherry Falls manages to justify its existence. Sure, it’s Scream-inspired. But it’s not a Scream clone and it has plenty to say. Of the films released in the wake of Scream’s success, this is easily one of the most noteworthy.”
Couldn’t have said it better myself. Beyond streaming on AMC+, there’s also a noteworthy Scream Factory release of the title available to purchase. However, you choose to make it happen, carve out some time this weekend to watch Cherry Falls. Who knows? It might just be the one.
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