Lili Reinhart leads a glittering, dangerous coven in Meredith Alloway’s bold comedy-horror that satirizes retail culture and modern sisterhood
The film Forbidden Fruits arrives as Meredith Alloway’s striking feature debut, a piece that mixes camp, satire and bloody set pieces. Co-written by Alloway and Lily Houghton — and adapted from Houghton’s 2019 play Of the woman came the beginning of sin, and through her we all die — the movie unfolds in the improbable intimacy of an upscale mall shop called Free Eden. At its center is Apple, played by Lili Reinhart, a retail worker who runs an after-hours femme witchy cult in the store’s hidden corners. The film premiered in front of festival audiences and stakes its claim as a fresh entry in contemporary comedy horror.
Alloway’s tone is gleefully unhinged: the picture delights in outfits, stagey rituals and dialogue that skewers generational affectations. Apple recruits a trio of colleagues — the coquettish Cherry, the cerebral Fig and a new hire named Pumpkin — and each member is coded as a fruit to reflect rhythms of the retail year. Supporting turns from Victoria Pedretti, Alexandra Shipp, Lola Tung, Emma Chamberlain and Gabrielle Union round out a cast that mixes mainstream and internet-bred personalities, giving the ensemble both cinematic polish and contemporary bite.
Character work is the engine here. Pedretti’s Cherry is delivered with a pinched, breathy energy that sells both vulnerability and entitlement; she feels like a former socialite clinging to a constructed identity. Shipp’s Fig reads as the group’s reluctant pragmatic mind — an astrophysics background and weary logic beneath trendy make-up. Reinhart shapes Apple as a magnetic ringleader: sequined, confident and never fully transparent, she is the film’s central mystery. Tung’s Pumpkin arrives as a quietly probing presence whose goals slowly surface, steering the plot toward a personal reckoning. The supporting players, including Chamberlain’s traumatized ex-employee and Union’s damage-control manager, help the piece shift from sly satire to genuinely tense moments.
Much of the film’s power comes from ensemble chemistry. The interplay between the leads oscillates between gleeful cruelty and earnest sisterhood, creating an unsettling intimacy that the director leverages into shock and dark humor. The actors trade barbs and confidences in a way that makes the coven feel like a workplace clique pushed to extremes. Those tonal flips — from caustic comedy to sudden violence — rely on cast commitment, and Alloway’s direction gives actors room to push each beat, whether it’s a shriek, a deadpan aside or a moment of true regret.
At its core, Forbidden Fruits interrogates performative solidarity and the commodification of identity. The film skewers millennial and Gen Z rituals while also examining how capitalist pressures shape female relationships, rendering friendship both a refuge and a battlefield. Alloway and Houghton’s script peppers witty, rapid-fire lines that expose how public personas are curated. Stylistically, the movie nods to earlier cult-minded teen horror and satire: you can see echoes of dark comedies and witchcraft films without feeling derivative. The result is an exploration of toxic feminine dynamics through a distinctly modern lens — an approach that feels both provocative and ruefully funny.
The mall is more than a backdrop; it functions as a character. The hyper-stylized Free Eden store gives the filmmakers a visual playground for ritual and retail choreography, where fluorescent light and glossy displays meet occult paraphernalia. Cinematography by Karim Hussain leans into vivid color and tight framing, while production design by Ciara Vernon amplifies the film’s synthetic glamour. Composer Mikaila Simmons supplies a score that alternates between playful and ominous, supporting tonal pivots with ease. These craft choices help the film feel like a confection — sugared on the surface, sharp underneath.
Forbidden Fruits screened in its world premiere during the festival circuit and is set for wider release on March 27, 2026 via Independent Film Company/Shudder. The film runs approximately 1 hr 43 mins and carries an R rating. Behind the scenes, producers include Mason Novick, Diablo Cody, Trent Hubbard and Mary Anne Waterhouse, with executive producers supporting a production that balances indie risks with genre crowd-pleasing moments. For viewers seeking a stylish, satirical horror that centers female perspectives while delivering blood and laughs, Alloway’s debut is a bold, memorable entry worth watching.