Audiences got an ample serving of Forbidden Fruits during the movie’s SXSW world premiere on Monday, marking director Meredith Alloway‘s unhinged camp feature debut.
Co-written by Alloway and Lily Houghton, based on the latter’s 2019 play Of the woman came the beginning of sin, and through her we all die, the movie stars Lili Reinhart as retail employee Apple, who operates an after-hours femme witchy cult in the upscale mall store Free Eden.
With her stylish minions Cherry (Victoria Pedretti) and Fig (Alexandra Shipp), they take in new girl Pumpkin (Lola Tung) as the fourth and final member of their coven, with each fruit representing a different season of the retail cycle.
Pedretti stands out as squeaky-voiced Cherry, a boy-crazy former rich girl with a bad case of Main Character Syndrome and very little self-awareness. Shipp’s Fig is an astrophysics grad, who’s too smart for her own good and the voice of reason when shit hits the fan.
Reinhart’s Apple is a deliciously deadly mystery wrapped in sequins and pure unadulterated attitude, as Tung’s Pumpkin subtly manipulates the group to get to the bottom of a past incident that weighs on her personally, despite her new friends being oblivious to her true identity.
The film also features performances from Emma Chamberlain as traumatized former employee/cultist Pickle and Gabrielle Union as store manager Sharon, who’s been hired to keep the ladies in line after a tragedy recently struck the store.
Alloway and Houghton’s nonstop witty dialogue pokes fun at millennial and Gen Z culture, as well as the overbearing system of capitalism that keeps us in a constant state of disillusionment, while the hyper stylized mall setting provides the ultimate playground for these characters to unleash all hell.
With all the makings of an instant cult classic, Forbidden Fruits is a worthy entry to the comedy horror genre that explores toxic feminism through the female gaze, filled with elements that nod to Mean Girls, Jawbreaker, The Craft, The Shining, Psycho, and even a bloody fun dash of Final Destination in the third act. There’s also an early credits that’s scene that’s worth sticking around to see.
Title: Forbidden Fruits
Festival: SXSW (Narrative Spotlight)
Distributor: Independent Film Company/Shudder
Release date: March 27, 2026
Director: Meredith Alloway
Screenwriters: Meredith Alloway, Lily Houghton
Cast: Lili Reinhart, Lola Tung, Victoria Pedretti, Alexandra Shipp, Emma Chamberlain, Gabrielle Union
Running time: 1 hr 43 mins