By George & Josh Bate
Four of the film industry’s most mesmerizing young actresses team up for a genre-blending movie destined to achieve cult status about sisterhood, witches, building community, and the toxicity that all three can foster.
Making its world premiere at SXSW 2026 and marking the feature directorial debut of Meredith Alloway, Forbidden Fruits follows Apple (Lili Reinhart), Cherry (Victoria Pedretti), and Fig (Alexandra Shipp), three young women that comprise a witchy femme cult operating out of a clothing store in a mall. The interpersonal dynamics of the trio are uprooted when Pumpkin (Lola Tung) enters the group and slowly begins to question Apple’s leadership and the dark history of the coven.
Based on a stage play by Lily Houghton, who also co-writes the film, Forbidden Fruits combines feminine energy with horror tropes in a manner similar to The Craft and Jennifer’s Body. Diablo Cody, who wrote the latter feminist cult favorite, actually produces Forbidden Fruits and it is clear that her new film very much exists in the same genre space as the Megan Fox-led horror comedy.
Like Jennifer’s Body, Meredith Alloway’s film examines the fruits and frustrations fostered by female friendship. When Lola Tung’s Pumpkin enters the fold, she inserts herself in a femme cult with rigid rules and established dynamics. Lili Reinhart’s Apple leads the coven with a confidence and guardedness – one second she is exceedingly, even overwhelmingly, kind to her fellow witches and the next she berates one of her coven for their “unattractive” qualities. Apple is the personification of intimidating and, as such, keeps the other women in her group in order, despite ironically stating at one point, “You know I don’t believe in hierarchy in female relationships.”
The Haunting of Hill House’s Victoria Pedretti, meanwhile, plays Cherry, the most emotionally intense and tender of the bunch. Cherry has a certain innocence about her that the other women don’t as exposition regarding a traumatic past is followed by a sweet, warm, and even childlike performance from Pedretti. More than the other women, Cherry finds herself in the crosshairs of Apple’s criticisms and yet does not waver in her loyalty to her leader and their coven.
Both Cherry and Alexandra Shipp’s Fig resort to keeping secrets in order to preserve their standing in the group. Fig, perhaps more than any other member, grapples with the inner conflict of devotion and individualism. Between participating in rituals in the upstairs dressing room area and overseeing customers of the Free Eden store, Fig sneaks off to spend time with a man named Norman. But, according to the rules of the coven, Fig needs to limit her time with him and can only communicate with him over text via emojis.
Forbidden Fruits succeeds in crafting three distinct female characters out of Apple, Cherry, and Fig, all of whom are brought to life with magnetic performances. Reinhart, Pedretti, and Shipp immediately sell the authenticity of their toxic bond to the audience and provide nuance to undeniably complicated friendship dynamics. Pedretti, in particular, shines as the unexpected heart of the movie, largely due to the juxtaposition between her aforementioned innocence and the cruelty that she is exposed to. Reinhart, meanwhile, deliberately grows into the film by portraying Apple as a character initially seen as invulnerable and eventually seen as suffering from old wounds. Shipp is subtly responsible for some of the film’s best laughs as the Barbie actress flexes her comedic timing and idiosyncratic line delivery here.
Lola Tung’s Pumpkin – the group’s newcomer – anchors the story and serves as our point of entry into a pre-existing world. At first, it seems as if Tung will bring a much-needed groundedness to the film as Reinhart, Pedretti, Shipp, and the tone of the film overall is rather heightened and dreamlike. None of the three witches behave like people from the real world, something Tung’s introduction does little to ameliorate given her character Pumpkin largely overlooking the unusual actions of her fellow witches and soon behaving just like them.
Tone continues to be an issue as the lack of groundedness creates a certain emotional distance from the narrative and its characters. This means that there’s no character to truly latch onto or invest in, even Pumpkin, resulting in a rather passive viewing experience.
Much of the film meanders along in chronicling the shifting dynamics of the coven without a sturdy narrative to drive things forward. In turn, it always feels like the movie is on the precipice of truly starting but never actually gets started – like it’s perpetually stuck in act 1 and unable to progress to act 2.
The lack of narrative momentum, in part, comes from the film’s unwillingness to fully delve into the supernatural side of its story. The Free Eden coven conduct witchy rituals in the upstairs dressing room area and follow strange rules that seem consistent with an idiosyncratic femme witch cult. However, the film rarely delves into the witches’ ability to tap into the supernatural, to such an extent that it leaves one questioning whether the few unusual events that occur are due to witch spells or purely a matter of coincidence. There is certainly something lacking in the weight of Forbidden Fruits’ narrative and this something may very well be a more full-fledged dive into the horror tropes he seems only interested in skimming past.
Forbidden Fruits yields mixed results in its exploration of sisterhood. Alloway’s film toys with the idea of the toxicity that comes from all-female friend groups and explores young women’s attempts to build a safe community for themselves when the world around them doesn’t necessarily afford them that opportunity. Unfortunately, Alloway and Houghton’s screenplay lacks the precision and clarity necessary to give these themes the depth they deserve, rendering their film thematically hollow.
Shudder Release.
Greater success is found in the overall aesthetic and atmosphere of the film. Forbidden Fruits is unabashedly feminine and proudly proclaims that power and femininity can co-exist and are not mutually exclusive concepts. The costumes, hair and make-up design, and dreamily soft cinematography imbue the film with a feminine grace and a unique atmosphere. The contained mall-bound setting also adds a novel backdrop for a film about the dynamics of a witch cult.
VERDICT: 4/10
Forbidden Fruits exists in a lineage of films like Jennifer’s Body and The Craft that portray the fruits and frustrations of female friendship while embracing established tropes of the horror genre. Director and co-writer Meredith Alloway’s directorial debut features a compelling collective of four characters at its heart, each played by one of the film industry’s most mesmerizing young actresses working today. The screenplay by Alloway and Lily Houghton, in addition to strong performances from Lili Reinhart, Alexandra Shipp, Victoria Pedretti, and Lola Tung, flesh each of these women out as unique characters with their own blend of strengths, vulnerabilities, and personality quirks. Unfortunately, the film missteps with a heightened and dreamlike tone that renders the characters unlike anyone from the real world and creates too much emotional distance between the characters and the audience. A lack of narrative momentum and stakes means that the film feels like it is perpetually stuck in act 1, an issue made all the more problematic by the film’s perplexing reluctance to dive more fully into the supernatural. Sisterhood, the toxicity of all -female friend groups, and the communities women try to build for themselves are explored in a manner that lacks the precision and clarity necessary to give these themes the depth they deserve, although the film excels in cultivating an unabashedly feminine and atmospheric viewing experience. For its host of missteps, however, Forbidden Fruits feels destined to achieve status as a feminist cult classic in the near future. Like Jennifer’s Body, Alloway’s film has all the makings of a movie ahead of its time that the years will be exceedingly kind to.
Forbidden Fruits is in theaters on March 27, 2026
