Forbidden Fruits (2026)
Directed by: Meredith Alloway
Premise: An adaptation on Lily Houghton’s stage Of the woman came the beginning of sin, and through her we all die. The female employees of a fashionable clothing store form a coven. A new member upsets the group’s power structure.
What Works: Witchcraft is having a cultural moment, especially in online spaces, and pseudo-spirituality has integrated into pop feminism. Much like The Craft in the 1990s, Forbidden Fruits is in touch with female youth culture in the 2020s. Like the 1996 film, Forbidden Fruits dramatizes how witchcraft is used as a signifier of sisterhood and feminine power but also the way in which the veneer of feminism is weaponized against other women. In many respects, Forbidden Fruits is actually closer to Mean Girls than it is to The Craft. This clique of young women are very much like the Plastics of Mean Girls and the story follows the Pygmalion formula in which an ugly duckling is transformed and disrupts the social hierarchy. Pumpkin (Lola Tung) goes from working in the food court to a fashionable clothing store and with the job transition comes a change in dress and personality. Joining the clique also means joining the coven and Apple (Lili Reinhart) uses witchcraft to bind the group together but also enforce the hierarchy and keep herself at the top. Whether or not the witchcraft is real is ambiguous but it serves as a metaphor of bullying. Forbidden Fruits has a dark sense of humor and it’s consistently funny. The filmmakers and the actors are in on the joke and the line delivery is on point especially by Lili Reinhart as Apple and Victoria Pedretti as Cherry. The costuming and visual style are appropriately slick, complementing the lighting and design of the shopping mall.
What Doesn’t: As a Pygmalion narrative and the story of a female clique, Forbidden Fruits is often predictable. The filmmakers bring a contemporary sensibility to this story but they don’t really deviate from it and the innovations are slight. Perhaps recognizing that so much of this is familiar, the filmmakers rush through some of the key moments. The story falls apart in the ending. Forbidden Fruits becomes a horror movie and the transition from sardonic humor to horror doesn’t quite work. The filmmakers abandon witchcraft in favor of slasher violence. The climax includes gory moments that are out of character with the rest of the picture and the plot twists are forced. Several big reveals occur in the last few minutes, one of them in a mid-credit scene. The big twists are unsatisfying and more confusing than revealing.
Disc extras: Available on various streaming services.
Bottom Line: Forbidden Fruits is frustrating. The performances are great, the dialogue is witty, and the tone is keyed into this cultural moment but the finale falls short. Forbidden Fruits emulates Heathers and Jawbreaker and early on it gets there but by the end it comes across like a bad imitation of South Park.
Episode: #1118 (September 27, 2026)