Cherry Falls

Released by: Shout! Factory
Released on: March 29, 2016
Director: Geoffrey Wright
Cast: Brittany Murphy, Michael Biehn, Jay Mohr, Candy Clark, Gabriel Mann, Joe Inscoe
Year: 2000
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The Movie:

Australian director Geoffrey Wright's Cherry Falls (2000) represented a swan song for Bingham Ray and Jeff Lipsky's indie production company, October Films, as it was the last film that they distributed. Along with Miramax and New Line Cinema, O.F. had been one of the leading indie firms since the early nineties but after being bought by Universal Pictures, its shares were sold to Barry Diller, who renamed the company USA Films. Corporate mergers and the restructuring of companies made a substantial impact on the resulting film. A rough cut featuring a longer version with more gore hence faced receiving an NC-17 rating by the MPAA. While Cherry Falls fared well overseas and played at some festivals, it never received an official U.S. theatrical release. It eventually premiered on USA Television in an edited version not unlike the 92-minute R-rated theatrical cut Shout! Factory has brought to Blu-ray.

As Wright observes in his commentary track, Cherry Falls cannot decide whether it really wants to be a straight-up horror film or a farcical take on the genre. The film is worth seeing because it provides a worthwhile, if not entirely successful, parody and critique of the teen slasher film. For example, it deviates from Halloween (1978) in that it portrays the daughter of a police officer as the heroine instead of as a victim. (But it also shares with A Nightmare on Elm Street a similar father/daughter relationship.) However, Jody Marken (Brittany Murphy) is no Nancy Thompson and only comes across as a half-baked version of Laurie Strode. The film also could have done a better job of developing Jody's relationship with her gay friend, Timmy (Keram Malicki-Sí¡nchez), whose fate is sealed too early. Instead, it focuses on her rather stale romance with musician Kenny Ascott (Gabriel Mann).

The plot centers around a seemingly androgynous figure clad in black who preys upon virgin teenagers in the small town of Cherry Falls, West Virginia. The first appearance of the stalker seated in a Lincoln Continental in the woods recalls The Shape chasing kids around in a similar vehicle in Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers. Cherry Falls' prowler also exhibits some of the same characteristics outwardly that may remind genre fans of the Curse of the Thorn figure lurking at the end of Halloween 5 and throughout its follow-up, Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers (especially The Producer's Cut). It is also no coincidence that Cherry Falls inserts a blatant homage to The Shining (1980). In actuality, it is apropos since legendary Steadicam operator Garrett Brown worked on both Wright's film and Kubrick's horror classic. The classroom scene the day after two teens are murdered is oddly reminiscent of a similar setting in Tim Hunter's River's Edge (1986) where high school students gather to discuss the strangulation of a teen with their teacher. The film also has a special connection with Brian De Palma's Dressed to Kill (1980), which I will not reveal to first-time viewers.

While a number of graphic shots were omitted from the original cut in favor of what Wright calls “airline editing,” the killing scenes don't work as well as they could due to some overwrought scoring by Walter Werzowa, who intersperses a trumpet and flugelhorn during the bloodshed. Werzowa's synth choir, however, suffuses a chilling atmosphere and spooky ambiance to the danger awaiting the town's teens.

Video/Audio/Extras:

Shout Factory! presents Cherry Falls in its presumed original theatrical aspect ratio of 1.85:1 on this BD-50. While this is almost undoubtedly the best the film has looked on home video, much of the movie appears to have undergone digital sharpening after the first set of shots, which show a nice amount of grain. Skin tones appear natural and all of the film's hues seem to replicate what they should have looked like in 1999/2000. Overall, this is very solid transfer but would have been better without the DNR and edge enhancement. Shout! includes both DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 and 2.0 tracks. The former was sampled and most dialogue is clear. Sound is nicely dispersed across the front and surround channels. Shout! has also included English SDH.

Shout! has packed their disc with a very good selection of supplements. First up is a brand new feature-length audio commentary with director Geoffrey Wright. There are only a couple gaps on this track as Wright imparts a lot of information on Cherry Falls' production history and its cast. Alongside the commentary, Lose it or Die: The Untold Story of Cherry Falls (24:30) is the most valuable extra on the disc. It features two new, extensive interviews with co-executive producer/screenwriter Ken Selden and producer Marshall Persinger. Selden delivers some pretty good tidbits on the genesis and formation of his screenplay but seems to not have prepared adequately for this new interview. As a result, there are many vocalized pauses. Persinger is much more prepared as she delivers a fairly thorough look-back at October Films and USA Films as well as the film's shoot. “Cherry Falls Deputy Mina” (7:40) is an average interview with actress Amanda Anka, who perhaps could have contributed more in her recollections of making Cherry Falls. Vintage Interviews (6:26) is an archival EPK collection of interview snippets with Brittany Murphy, Michael Biehn, Jay Mohr, and Geoffrey Wright. Mohr is the most interesting and it would have been a treat to get a new sit-down chat with him about the film. The interviews originally appeared on the Region 2 German Kinowelt PAL DVD and UK Region 2 Entertainment in Video PAL DVD. Behind the Scenes Footage (4:32) contains B-roll footage of about five scenes from the film. This is also ported over from the European DVDs. The last item we find on the disc is the film's original theatrical trailer (1:47). As they did on their release of Halloween II (1981), Shout! has included a PDF of the screenplay only accessible on BD-ROM. Indeed, they procured Selden's 122-page shooting script that is color-coordinated, enabling readers to see various revisions with different dates of the changes. Several scenes were originally written for the film but did not make it into the final version. According to Shout!: “We contacted the film's Director Geoffrey Wright to see if maybe he might have the excised material but were told that he was never given a chance to assemble a longer cut originally. He did not have the [excised] footage either.”

The Final Word:

Despite the trimmings imposed by the MPAA and changes in the film's production companies, Cherry Falls is still worth seeking out for its bevy of references to other horror films. The acting is unexceptional but the movie works as a genre study. The next distributor to release a high-def version of the film should seek out former employees of October Films and USA Films to see if the missing footage can be found in any warehouses or archives. Wright surmises that it still exists somewhere. Shout! should not have filtered the transfer as much as it did but makes up for it somewhat with a few terrific bonus features. Overall, a moderate recommendation for the whole package.

Click on the images below for full sized Blu-ray screen caps!