‘Forbidden Fruits’ review: Horror comedy about Texas teen witches casts a campy, playful spell

Dir: Meredith Alloway. US. 2026. 104mins

A reverently silly teen girl slasher, Meredith Alloway’s Forbidden Fruits is a megamall-set witchy film about a coven inducting a new member after one of their previous acolytes disappeared under mysterious circumstances. During the day, these four witches work at an over-priced Dallas clothing store trading catty burns and confessing their sins to Marylin Monroe’s memory in a changing room, At night, they perform spells conjured to settle scores. While the film struggles to remain trained on its probing protagonist and takes too much time getting to the bloody parts, the barrage of dumb jokes delivered by an adept cast gives this gnarly horror comedy some real cult appeal

Real cult appeal

In many ways, this film – an adaptation of Lily Houghton’s stage play Of the Women Came the Beginning of Sin And Through Her We All Die – follows in the footsteps of Heathers and The Craft. (The fact that Juno and Jennifer’s Body writer Diablo Cody is also a producer here intensifies this cinematic lineage). Premiering at SXSW and releasing on March 27 in the US via IFC Films before heading to Shudder, Forbidden Fruits aims to develop a rabid following among young viewers who loved similarly teen-coded TV series like Riverdale, You, and The Summer I Turned Pretty.

Pumpkin (Lola Tung) shows up to Free Eden, a clothing store within a Dallas mall, to offer free pretzel samples to the ‘Fruits’:  the controlling Apple (Reinhart), a dim Cherry (Victoria Pedretti), and a secretive Fig (Alexandra Shipp). Pumpkin wants to join this exclusive group of girls, who are treated like the coolest people in the mall. As the trio stride to work, clutching coffees in larger-than-life thermals, one can hear onlookers declaring their admiration – including one man bluntly exclaiming off screen, “I want her to spit in my mouth.” 

The quiet, parasocial Pumpkin is able to worm herself into this coven that has its own unique set of rules, like allowing women to shine without diming others and to only text boys using emojis. These bylaws are governed by Apple who, in an opening scene, teases a man in a pick-up truck to jerk off while Haute & Freddy’s ‘Scantily Clad’ plays in the background, before throwing her molten hot coffee on his crotch. She rules the Fruits with a similarly vindictive iron fist, bending Cherry into a closely monitored schedule and causing Fig to hide her boyfriend. Apple, however, takes a special shine to Pumpkin, whose motives are initially unclear. 

The ambiguity surrounding Pumpkin is probably the weakest part of a comedically strong movie. Once in the group, Pumpkin begins investigating the individual members and seemingly appropriates what makes them special. She stalks Cherry, for instance, to discover what kind of ‘therapy’ she is receiving and giving; she learns about state birds because Fig, a physicist, is interested in them. Pumpkin also plants a detective Barbie, embedded with a hidden camera for surveillance. Questions surrounding Pumpkin’s goals and why is she after the Fruits remain unanswered until some hamfisted dialogue late in the movie. 

Thankfully, the rest of the ensemble is entertaining. Pedretti’s Cherry produces laugh after laugh via the actress’ impeccable comic timing and hilarious reacion shots. Reinhart also springs withering and alluring one-liners: “It’s praying, not smoking,” she says as she asks Pumpkin to blow smoke into her mouth. The director also maximizes space in a way that recalls Chantal Akerman’s mall-set musical Golden Eighties, in which every store, from Macy’s to American Eagle Outfitters, becomes a winking joke about shopping culture and American consumerism.

Sometimes Forbidden Fruits can be as coy as its title suggests — the identity of the store manager Sharon is an overworked mystery — causing the film to lose its narrative rhythm from time to time. But when, in the final quarter, it turns into a grisly slasher with sensational kills, it’s easy to look past these hiccups. Alloway and Houghton’s critiques of Girl Boss feminism and tropes like girls with daddy issues are also handled with winking delight. All of those features resonate, even when these Fruits lose their luster in the eyes of one another.