Forbidden Fruits (2026) IFC/Horror-Comedy RT: 103 minutes Rated R (strong violent content/gore, sexual content, nudity, language, brief drug use) Director: Meredith Alloway Screenplay: Lily Houghton and Meredith Alloway Music: Anna Drubich Cinematography: Karim Hussain Release date: March 27, 2026 (US) Cast: Lili Reinhart, Lola Tung, Victoria Pedretti, Alexandra Shipp, Emma Chamberlain, Gabrielle Union.
Rating: **
The main problem with the horror-comedy Forbidden Fruits is that it tries too hard to be a cult film and ends up missing the mark altogether. Something like that has to happen naturally; it can’t be forced. That doesn’t stop some filmmakers from trying anyway. When will they ever learn?
Before I proceed with my review of Forbidden Fruits, I’d better clear something up. Diablo Cody (Juno, Jennifer’s Body) did NOT write the screenplay. She only serves as one of the producers. It’s actually written by Meredith Alloway (who also directs) and Lily Houghton. Now that that’s out of the way, let’s move on.
Based on Houghton’s stage play Of the Woman Came the Beginning of Sin and Through Her We All Die (a title derived from the book of Ecclesiasticus), Forbidden Fruits is a mix of Mean Girls, Clueless, Jawbreaker, The Craft and Practical Magic. It has attitude to spare, but too little in the way of craftsmanship. It’s disjointed, meandering and tonally uneven. It loses its way more times than a traveler without a map. When it finally reaches its destination, it’s a great big “so what?” Who didn’t see it coming?
Meet the employees of Free Eden, a high-end clothing boutique in a Dallas mall. The queen bee of the group is Apple (Reinhart, Riverdale), a controlling type who uses words like weapons against the very people she claims to support. Her co-workers Cherry (Pedretti, The Haunting of Hill House) and Fig (Shipp, X-Men: Apocalypse) faithfully follow her lead in every imaginable way. One day, a girl named Pumpkin (Tung, The Summer I Turned Pretty) appears bearing soft pretzel samples. Fig takes an immediate liking to her and introduces her to Apple who invites her to join their exclusive little clique. No surprise, Pumpkin has an ulterior motive for wanting in.
Now here’s the thing about the clique. They’re actually a witches coven. They operate out of the store after hours. They confess to their goddess Marilyn Monroe by way of a fitting room mirror. They put “hexes” on anybody they perceive as a threat. It’s all about girl power and it all belongs to Apple. She runs the coven with an iron fist with firm rules about sex, boys and food. She especially has it out for the opposite sex as evidenced by how she handles a creep masturbating in his car in the parking lot in the movie’s opening scene. Apple is NOT somebody you want to cross. Marilyn help anyone who tries.
The set-up is decent, but Alloway doesn’t know exactly where to go with it. The storyline is all over the place. So is the tone. We get subplots about a former member of the group (a troubled girl named Pickle), Fig’s secret boyfriend, the unseen manager of the store and the connection between Pumpkin and Apple. Odd thing, with all that’s going on, the girls’ supernatural abilities go unexplained. Where do they come from? The tone is mostly comical; the shift to gory horror is jarring. To the film’s credit, the gore effects are well done (if you ever wanted to see somebody get mangled by an escalator….), but they don’t come until near the end.
One could describe Forbidden Fruits as minimalist. It’s set entirely inside the mall with a few scenes in the parking lot. There aren’t too many characters, just the four girls, the troubled girl Pickle, a guy and the boss played by Gabrielle Union (Bring It On). If you want to see her, stick around for the mid-credits scene. It’s a slightly bigger surprise than the big reveal which isn’t surprising at all. The four main actresses deliver solid performances, especially Reinhart who’s like a more evil Regina George. Pedretti is good as the ditzy egoist who usually finds herself at the tips of Apple’s pointed barbs. Shipp is great as the only one with a mind of her own. She goes along with Apple, but knows that she’s on the precipice of outgrowing this friendship.
Tung more than holds her own as the mysterious Pumpkin, a humble girl always checking in with her mother. She’s actually the most interesting character with how she quietly tries to turn the others against their leader. She might be the proverbial snake in Paradise.
The mall setting serves as a connection to the 90s even though Forbidden Fruits takes place now. It makes sense since most of the movies it borrows from came out in that decade. The look of the film is a blend of dull and garish. It’s not all that aesthetically interesting. The music, mostly by female artists, feels right.
Forbidden Fruits is lame. It’s not the worst movie I’ve seen all year, but it is one of the most frustrating. It could have been so much more than a weak horror-comedy with a feminist slant. It only scratches the surface of female empowerment and the tendency of supposed bffs to cut each other down. If only the whole movie was as nuts as the bloody finale, it might have been great. In its current form, it’s only mildly entertaining.
