{"id":14235,"date":"2026-03-27T14:43:36","date_gmt":"2026-03-27T18:43:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=14235"},"modified":"2026-04-09T11:38:02","modified_gmt":"2026-04-09T15:38:02","slug":"forbidden-fruits","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2026\/03\/27\/forbidden-fruits\/","title":{"rendered":"Forbidden Fruits"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Forbidden Fruits<\/strong> (2026)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 IFC\/Horror-Comedy\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 103 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (strong violent content\/gore, sexual content, nudity, language, brief drug use)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Meredith Alloway\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Lily Houghton and Meredith Alloway\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Anna Drubich\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Karim Hussain\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: March 27, 2026 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Lili Reinhart, Lola Tung, Victoria Pedretti, Alexandra Shipp, Emma Chamberlain, Gabrielle Union.<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: **<\/p>\n

\u00a0The main problem with the horror-comedy Forbidden Fruits<\/strong> 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\u2019t be forced. That doesn\u2019t stop some filmmakers from trying anyway. When will they ever learn?<\/p>\n

\u00a0Before I proceed with my review of Forbidden Fruits<\/strong>, I\u2019d better clear something up. Diablo Cody (Juno, Jennifer\u2019s Body) did NOT write the screenplay. She only serves as one of the producers. It\u2019s actually written by Meredith Alloway (who also directs) and Lily Houghton. Now that that\u2019s out of the way, let\u2019s move on.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Based on Houghton\u2019s 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 <\/strong>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\u2019s disjointed, meandering and tonally uneven. It loses its way more times than a traveler without a map. When it finally reaches its destination, it\u2019s a great big \u201cso what?\u201d Who didn\u2019t see it coming?<\/p>\n

\u00a0Meet 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.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Now here\u2019s the thing about the clique. They\u2019re 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 \u201chexes\u201d on anybody they perceive as a threat. It\u2019s 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\u2019s opening scene. Apple is NOT somebody you want to cross. Marilyn help anyone who tries.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The set-up is decent, but Alloway doesn\u2019t 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\u2019s secret boyfriend, the unseen manager of the store and the connection between Pumpkin and Apple. Odd thing, with all that\u2019s going on, the girls\u2019 supernatural abilities go unexplained. Where do they come from? The tone is mostly comical; the shift to gory horror is jarring. To the film\u2019s credit, the gore effects are well done (if you ever wanted to see somebody get mangled by an escalator….), but they don\u2019t come until near the end.<\/p>\n

\u00a0One could describe Forbidden Fruits<\/strong> as minimalist. It\u2019s set entirely inside the mall with a few scenes in the parking lot. There aren\u2019t 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\u2019s a slightly bigger surprise than the big reveal which isn\u2019t surprising at all. The four main actresses deliver solid performances, especially Reinhart who\u2019s like a more evil Regina George. Pedretti is good as the ditzy egoist who usually finds herself at the tips of Apple\u2019s pointed barbs. Shipp is great as the only one with a mind of her own. She goes along with Apple, but knows that she\u2019s on the precipice of outgrowing this friendship.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Tung more than holds her own as the mysterious Pumpkin, a humble girl always checking in with her mother. She\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The mall setting serves as a connection to the 90s even though Forbidden Fruits<\/strong> 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\u2019s not all that aesthetically interesting. The music, mostly by female artists, feels right.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Forbidden Fruits<\/strong> is lame. It\u2019s not the worst movie I\u2019ve 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\u2019s only mildly entertaining.\"\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Forbidden Fruits (2026)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 IFC\/Horror-Comedy\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 103 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (strong violent content\/gore, sexual content, nudity, language, brief drug use)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Meredith Alloway\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Lily Houghton and Meredith Alloway\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Anna Drubich\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Karim Hussain\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: March 27, 2026 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Lili Reinhart, Lola Tung, Victoria Pedretti, Alexandra Shipp, Emma Chamberlain, Gabrielle Union. Rating: ** […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":14237,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14235","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-horror"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Forbidden-Fruits-PIC.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14235","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14235"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14235\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14239,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14235\/revisions\/14239"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14237"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14235"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14235"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14235"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}