Leofwine_draca CHERRY FALLS is one of the many knuckleheaded slasher films to come out in the wake of Wes Craven's SCREAM, and it's a particularly pitiful effort for the genre. All of the old, tired clichés are dragged out here and treated as if they're fresh and exciting, even if they go through the same old routines time and again. There are stalk 'n' slash sequences, scenes of the heroine fighting off a vicious attacker, and more of the brain-dead high school speak than you can shake a stick at. The one difference about this film is that the killer targets virgins rather than those who are sexually active; in films such as the Friday THE 13TH series, it's usually the lascivious ones who die first. However, this twist makes not a jot of difference to the film itself and indeed its done away with by the time the climax rolls.This film has one of those glossy looks that are manufactured to hide imperfections in the story. There is no real plot here, so to speak of, just one of those old 'past comes back to haunt' origins for the villain that used to be good in the likes of THE BURNING. The film's indebted to PSYCHO in a big way, but whereas Hitchcock's thriller was taut and superlative, this is just flat and lifeless. It feels like nothing more than a cast and crew going through the motions to pick up a pay cheque afterwards.Brittany Murphy used to be one of the most irritating actresses in Hollywood, although she seemed to have mellowed by the time I saw her in SIN CITY. I hoped her turn here would be like the one in the latter film, but no: it's like the one in DRIVE instead, all throaty vocals and high-pitched squealing. It's really bad. Other than the unremarkable teenage cast, the only familiar face is Michael Biehn playing the town sheriff. This is the kind of role that anybody could have filled and there's nothing of the humanity that Biehn brought to the likes of Reese in THE TERMINATOR and Hicks in ALIENS here. CHERRY FALLS is a film singularly devoid of motive, intent, terror and suspense; in short, it's pants.

crustysaltmerchant I had never even heard of this film when I saw it on the shelf of my second hand DVD shop but at 75p I thought I'd give it a go. I was robbed. OK it wasn't that bad but considering the cast it had it was very poor. Brittany Murphy is uglied up with a terrible fright wig for some bizarre reason, Michael Biehn is phoning it in for most of the film and just when he starts to act he dies! The whole twist is centred around a woman called Loralee but it's blatantly obvious to anyone that loralee is a man in drag and again it's so obvious who that man is. I guessed it within ten minutes. The murders are also a let down, the film has an 18 rating and yet is almost entirely free of gore and bloodshed. Even the killing of the bad guy is without the required splatter of a stalk and slash film. With cardboard characters, bad dialogue, huge plot holes and general ineptness in film making this should be avoided. The film is neither funny nor scary nor sexy and so fails on it's three main selling points.

Matt Kracht I had never even heard of this movie until recently. I guess I was far outside of its demographic, being almost 30 when it was released. I watched it because I thought it was a Michael Biehn movie about him chasing a serial killer. However, it turns out that this is a ridiculous Scream clone, marketed to teenagers. The first half of the movie is pretty stupid. Like Scream, it constantly attempts to impress us with its witty and ironic deconstructions of teenage slasher conventions. In traditional movies, such as Friday the 13th, a serial killer brutally murders horny teenagers who have sex. In this movie, it's the reverse: a serial killer hunts down and brutally murders virgins. That's very witty and ironic, if you're a teenager or hack screenwriter.There are some parts of the movie that work, however. While too inhibited to be effective as a horror movie, there are some funny scenes near the end. Also, if you're looking for a small town with a dark secret, this is definitely your kind of place. I was actually a bit surprised that they went this dark. I was expecting a rather bland and stereotypical backstory, if any.For a movie targeted to teens, it's really not that bad. If you're old enough to have teenage kids yourself, however, I'd probably steer clear.

chris dimarino Cherry Falls had all the makings of a "who done it" slasher, in line with the screams and i know what you did last summer molds. It however had a dull plot, which developed slowly and awkwardly and suffered from some awful production value and shot execution. The plot is simply the effort to unmask a murderer who is killing virgins. Aside from the fact that so much of the film is ludicrous, the way many of the "action" sequences were shot and edited was just atrocious. I would have given this movie some leniency if it was done by amateurs with amateur actors, but there are quite a few bigger names in it. The acting is moderate, but i doubt anyone could've saved this script.I wouldn't recommend this movie to anyone, unless you hate movies.