Cherry Falls is a difficult film to review. It is not the movie that Geoffrey Wright made. We have a really clever idea, the norm for slasher films is that the naughty girls get slashed and the nice girls survive. As the title none too subtly suggests, survival in this film is dependent on the various 'cherries' on campus falling i.e. the dissolute girls flourish but the unsullied fall victim to the slashers enormous knife. This is a definite plus.
Where the movie falls down is that there is no slashing of virtuous or promiscuous girls. Not that I necessarily want to see girls get hurt but slashing is sort of a convention of slasher films.
Unfortunately for Wright, and more unfortunately for the 15 killed, requiescat in pace, and the many more injured, the film was made against the background of the Columbine Massacre. Various Government agency took to the film to expunge terror and violence for good of the vulnerable. One can completely understand this decision but it has significantly reduced the impact of the movie.
The various production companies involved claim that the edited film has been lost. Wright however is adamant that here is no such thing as lost film in Hollywood. The plethora of films re-released as directors cut or containing original but lost footage is extraordinary. There are four versions of Blade Runner for instance, each containing just a little more footage. I'm confident that a complete version of Cherry Falls could be released if there was energy for it.
Any way, Cherry Falls, even in its present format, is worth a watch but it is not the film it could have been.
Where the movie falls down is that there is no slashing of virtuous or promiscuous girls. Not that I necessarily want to see girls get hurt but slashing is sort of a convention of slasher films.
Unfortunately for Wright, and more unfortunately for the 15 killed, requiescat in pace, and the many more injured, the film was made against the background of the Columbine Massacre. Various Government agency took to the film to expunge terror and violence for good of the vulnerable. One can completely understand this decision but it has significantly reduced the impact of the movie.
The various production companies involved claim that the edited film has been lost. Wright however is adamant that here is no such thing as lost film in Hollywood. The plethora of films re-released as directors cut or containing original but lost footage is extraordinary. There are four versions of Blade Runner for instance, each containing just a little more footage. I'm confident that a complete version of Cherry Falls could be released if there was energy for it.
Any way, Cherry Falls, even in its present format, is worth a watch but it is not the film it could have been.