Poison Fruit

A clique of young witches rule a Texas mall with an iron fist in 2026's Forbidden Fruits. It's essentially a low budget Mean Girls with horror elements thrown in and manages to be fairly charming.

The clique, a trio at the beginning of the film, are all named for fruits: Apple, Fig, and Cherry. Apple (Lili Reinhart) is the cruel, vindictive leader, Cherry (Victoria Pedretti) is the pathetic, codependent follower and Fig (Alexandra Shipp) is a less zealous devotee. Fig is basically the token black character but I don't want to give the movie too hard a time about it. All the actresses are fine though Apple is certainly the most beautiful which may be the unspoken reason behind her position as leader.

Into the mix ventures Pumpkin (Lola Tung), who wants to join the group. It's through Pumpkin's point of view that we get to know these strange divas. Their headquarters is a clothing store in the mall and they routinely bilk customers for thousands of dollars for cheap looking trinkets. Trouble arises as Pumpkin begins to gain intel about a former member named Pickle (Emma Chamberlain) whom we catch glimpses of peering into the shop wearing a blue babydoll dress.

My main complaint about the film is the production design which is oddly sparse. Most of it was shot in an actual mall, which is fine, but the shop where they work and their upstairs HQ, "Paradise", have too many blank walls and unoccupied floor space. There needed to be more witchy knickknacks and clothes piled around. One of the funniest lines of the film is when Fig complains that she mainly joined the group so that she could wear floral lingerie for summer clothes. Some more idiosyncratic fashion choices would've been nice to see though Cherry has kind of a nicely weird cowgirl getup at the beginning of the film.

Apple is the most interesting of the group though Lili Reinhart's performance would've benefitted from a little more nuance. But I doubt it was a mistake that she reminded me of Joan Crawford. She presents the viewer with a moral problem, asking us to see her humanity behind her apparent villainy. The film's based on a stage play called Of the woman came the beginning of sin, and through her we all die. Which says a lot, doesn't it?

It's worth noting this is one of the few movies I've ever seen that was written and directed by women and features an entirely female cast (a few boys make brief appearances). Otherwise, there's a very retro feel to the film. Middle class malls like the one depicted in the film barely exist in America anymore and they're certainly not hang-outs for the cool girls. One very 2020s element, though, is that Apple lives in her car.

One reference is actually made to Mean Girls when one character calls another "Gorgina George", referring to Rachel McAdams' character, Regina George. Chappell Roan's song "Naked in Manhattan" also mentions the character admiringly. Is Regina really everyone's favourite now? I mean, she's fine, but I'll take Amanda Seyfried any day.

Forbidden Fruits is available on Shudder.