Scream was a witty deconstruction of slasher movie cliches that came with a mind-boggling series of in-jokes and genre margin notes. Almost all of the above-listed imitators missed the sly meta-fictionality and merely became copycat slasher films churned out without any irony. However, Cherry Falls is one of the few that goes where Scream did in poking considerable satiric fun at the conventions of the genre. First of all, it appealingly reverses the morality that underlies all slasher films – slasher films of the 1980s (and 00s) invariably kill off the promiscuous and have the virginal heroine survive; Cherry Falls turns this on its head and has the killer targeting virgins. This leads to a number of rather funny scenes – like where concerned, conservative-seeming parent Michael Biehn goes to daughter Brittany Murphy and cautiously asks how far she has gone with her boyfriend and then what starts out seeming to be a parental warning speech is hilariously turned around as he starts suggesting that perhaps she go a bit further. The script keeps putting hysterical spins on the idea – like having the teens organizing parties to lose their virginities. The characterizations are drawn with an often-appealing sarcasm. The killer, when revealed, even has a piece of cod motivation that is much more substantial than usual for these films, not to mention comes with finely loaded symbolism – the four who raped the victim came from families that have positions of respectability in the community and the killer is taking revenge by ravaging the symbolic innocence of the community.

Cherry Falls was made by Australian director Geoffrey Wright, who previously directed the excellent skinhead film Romper Stomper (1992), which introduced Russell Crowe to the world, as well as the less well-received Melbourne petrolhead culture film Metal Skin (1994). Cherry Falls was Geoffrey Wright’s first (and so far only) venture onto American shores. Subsequently, Wright went onto conduct a modernized version of Shakespeare’s MacBeth (2006) set in the Melbourne underworld.

Alas, the considerable visual style that Geoffrey Wright showed in these other films seems to have been swallowed up here by a low-budget. The film looks bland and cheaply video-shot. Wright does drum up some occasionally well-sustained suspense during the scenes where the killer pursues Brittany Murphy through the school, although other scenes like the climax with the killer pursuing her through the virginity ball fall apart due to an element of slapstick being allowing to creep in. It is a case, one suspects, of Geoffrey Wright having taken the job for the money, resented the material he had been handed and directed it with minimal interest. That said, Cherry Falls is a case of an otherwise drab film being lifted by a sharp and witty script.