Forbidden Fruits (now streaming on VOD platforms like Amazon Prime Video) is absolutely loaded with promise: An amusing premise involving a witch coven operating within a mall clothing store. Kitschy-campy horror-comedy vibes. A new voice in first-time feature director Meredith Alloway, who adapts Lily Houghton’s impressively titled stage play Of the woman became the beginning of sin, and through her we all die. And a high-potential cast of young stars-in-the-making, including Lili Reinhart, Lola Tung, Victoria Pedretti and Alexandra Shipp. The question we may end up struggling with is whether the final product lives up to all that potential.
The Gist: The opening song, “Scantily Clad” by Haute and Freddy, perfectly encapsulates the tone of Forbidden Fruits, with its ’80s-Madonna synth beat bopping beneath a bold, empowered neo-femme lyric: It’s telling us that this movie is throwback pastiche accessorized with modern sensibilities.
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