Join BP, Justin and your host Coop as we discuss the 1999 American slasher film directed by Geoffrey Wright, and starring Brittany Murphy, Jay Mohr, and Michael Biehn.
The plot focuses on a small Virginia town where a serial killer is targeting teenaged virgins. After being submitted to and rejected by the MPAA numerous times, Cherry Falls was screened at several film festivals in some countries in late 1999 and early 2000, but did not have a theatrical release in the United States. Finally, it was purchased by USA Films, who telecast it on the USA Network on October 20, 2000.
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Chapters
00:00 Introduction
00:18 Title Sequence
00:55 Introducing Cherry Falls
01:23 Overall Thoughts
06:05 Favourite Parts
11:02 What We Disliked
18:18 Trivia
23:17 Ratings
26:14 Thank You
26:40 Class Dismissed!
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Production
In October 1998, Variety announced Geoffrey Wright as director. Wright promised an intelligent script full of irony. In 1999, the filmmakers began scouting locations in Virginia, using the town square in Warrenton; the high school used in the film was Thomas Jefferson High School, located in Richmond. The residents of Richmond lambasted the making of the film because of its brutality.
The film's set was described as "tense" by writer Ken Selden, due to the thirty-day production schedule falling behind, which led to budget issues from October Films. Director Geoffrey Wright kept Selden's original script relatively unchanged, but re-wrote the film's final "orgy scene", which had originally been conceived by Selden as featuring the teenagers having a mass sex party under a giant white sheet. Wright opted to shoot the scene with the cast nude, which resulted in much of the scene being cut in order to avoid an NC-17 rating.
Release
Cherry Falls was shopped at the Cannes film market in 1999, and was sold for theatrical distribution in all international territories across the world. The film had a tentative theatrical release scheduled for November 2000. However, the film was troubled by censor disapproval in the United States, and the distributors' relationship with USA Films led the company to make the decision to release it as a television movie in the United States, syndicated on the USA Network.
As a result, it became (and remains) the most expensive television film ever made, with a production budget of $14 million. The film shown at the in May 1999 at Marché du Film in France. Cherry Falls was released in the United States on October 20, 2000.
The film had successful theatrical runs in the United Kingdom and throughout Europe. It opened in the United Kingdom on August 25, 2000.
Rotten Tomatoes, a review aggregator, reports that 63% of 19 surveyed critics gave it a positive review. Doug Brod of Entertainment Weekly rated it A− and wrote that "it might just be the wittiest, most subversive teen thriller since Heathers". AllMovie gave it a favorable review: "Of all the teen slasher flicks that premiered after the wildly successful Scream series (Urban Legend, etc.), Cherry Falls will possibly go down as one of the most creative, but sadly unseen ones in the bunch".
Derek Elley of Variety called it "a semi-successful spin on familiar material that could build minor cult status". Nathan Rabin of The A.V. Club wrote: "Smart at times but not nearly smart enough, and peppered with good ideas it doesn't really know how to exploit, Cherry Falls is just good enough to make you wish it were far, far better". Chris Parcellin of Film Threat rated it 3/5 stars and wrote that "it aspires to be another Heathers or Rivers Edge, but doesn't make it". Total Film rated it 3/5 stars and wrote: "If you're not already sick to death of the teen horror genre, you might want to give this a look".
Matt Serafini of Dread Central ranked Cherry Falls number seven in a list of the top ten high school horror films from 1996 to the present.
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