Much like the seemingly indestructible nature of their antagonists, the slasher sub-genre has a way of resurrecting itself every generation to terrorize a new batch of teenagers who just want to drink, have sex and wallow in angst. Spanning continents and decades, the slasher evolves with each subsequent iteration and yet remains remarkably static in its tropes and structure. It’s a phenomenon that speaks to both the effectiveness of simplicity in horror and the ritualistic comfortability born out of the familiar.
In the 90s, the success of Wes Craven’s Scream (1996) kicked off a new wave of slasher films. Informed by the countless titles that had come before it, Scream was infused with a deep understanding of its chosen sub-genre. By constructing a narrative around that awareness, the film was able to bridge the gap between aficionados and novices alike, making for a slasher experience accessible to everyone.
A slew of successors followed in Scream’s wake, many attempting to adopt its precocious brand of self-aware witticism that so broadened the film’s reach. Films like I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997) and Urban Legend (1998) carried the torch into more traditional slasher territory, while still having fun with the conceits. Urban Legend in particular ratcheted up the more camp-like qualities, going so far as to enhance the insane killer’s climactic monologue with a prepared photo slideshow.
The logical evolution of this particular run in slasher history seemed to be one of self-awareness and satire. To push the boundaries of the tropes most associated with the slasher as far as they could go while still retaining the shape. And, as the 90’s came to a close, Cherry Falls (2000) attempted to do just that… and a whole lot more.
The result was a movie torn between two tones. On the page, Ken Selden wrote the film as slasher satire, cognizant of the sex and violence it was supposed to embody while reveling in the deconstruction and overabundance of the implications of such acts. And yet, onscreen Geoffrey Wright imbued the words with seriousness and a more dire edge, attempting to connect with the sub-genre’s roots as opposed to primarily commenting on them. When all was said and done, the film echoed sentiments of both creative’s intentions while not delivering successfully on either.
Worse yet, the finished picture so violated society’s standards at the time, at least in the eyes of the MPAA, that it was threatened with an X rating, making it unreleasable. The film languished until it was purchased by USA Films, edited to the point of being neutered and, at 14 million dollars, aired on their network as the most expensive television film ever made. While theaters in the UK and a DVD release at the time saw the film in its R-rated form, its original uncut version never did see a public release.
Still, through all of its troubles, there’s a blatancy to the movie that is undeniably entertaining. The killer targets virgins as opposed to punishing those who, by puritan society’s definitions, have transgressed, leading to ridiculous set pieces featuring uncomfortable incestuous asides, town meetings about the merits of their kids’ virginities and a climactic teen sex-fest guarded by the small town’s police force.
And, in my eyes, it is that audacious decision to set the killer and final girl’s ultimate confrontation against the backdrop of an underage orgy that ultimately represents the full scope of what Cherry Falls was attempting to accomplish. From the brassy words on the page to the images on the screen that amount to sex and violence incarnate, this sequence is one of the oddest, most scandalous conclusions in slasher history.
And for an ever-evolving sub-genre dedicated to sex, drugs and violent murder, that’s saying something.
THE SCENE
Jody and Kenny burst into the upstairs room and stop, surveying their scantily clad peers as they writhe about beneath the blankets. After Jody exclaims that he is the killer, Leonard bursts in and shouts “class dismissed!” All at once, the room of half-naked teenagers leap up from their blankets in a panic. Jody and Kenny are knocked down. Leonard begins slashing at everyone he passes, sending blood spraying against the skin of those in close proximity. A sea of barely clothed high school students spill down the stairs, trampling and knocking out Deputy Mina and creating a bottleneck for those attempting to escape. The railing breaks and people topple to the ground floor and subsequently through the front door. Meanwhile, Jody explores her options upstairs, coming upon several couples still cozied up under the sheets. Leonard catches up to her and attacks. They struggle but Kenny lunges on top of Leonard. Kenny’s thrown off and Leonard slashes him in the chest with his knife. Jody and Leonard lock eyes and, considering all she’s been through with him, she assumes the pose her father taught her earlier in the film and catches him as he charges her. She takes control and heaves him through the window behind her. He is thrown flailing into the night and lands impaled on the broken railing below.
THE SCRIPT
Excerpt found on PAGE 107 beginning with SCENE 172 and concluding on PAGE 112 with SCENE 184
Excerpt taken from the script ‘Cherry Falls’ written by Ken Selden.
THE SCREEN
The pair reach the top, walking into a tight two-shot but nothing prepares them for the sight that greets their eyes.
Jody and Kenny burst into the room, bloody and drenched in sweat. Despite their determination and fear, what they walk into stops them dead in their tracks. Sounds of moaning and heavy breathing waft toward them as they stand beside the mounted heads of a boar and a deer. Appropriate, it would seem that they’ve found themselves in a trophy room of sorts, a place of carnal expression.
Their POV: As far as the eye can see in every direction there are petting and fornicating couples lying on groundsheets, blankets, mattresses and practically anything that might soften the floor.
While the film does manage to paint the vast picture of untethered intimacy that appears on the page, the concept is accomplished in a more controlled manner through several close-ups of underwear-clad couples making out and caressing one another. A few of them are pushed so close together that they may as well have been sharing a bed as opposed to lying adjacent.
In the script, this sequence holds for a moment or two, actually calling for the floor itself to have a slight swaying motion. The moment of mass underage sex is undercut on the screen by Jody’s immediate warning that Mr. Marliston is the killer. Her scream interrupts the couples glimpsed earlier as their concerned faces turn staring toward the door, awakened from their lustful state.
The script continues the sensual revelry, noting that a few heads turn but that ultimately the orgy is oblivious. Kenny and Jody make their way through the teeming mass of bodies, stepping on skin as those below complain and mutter obscenities.
The film simplifies this by bringing in Leonard Marliston immediately after the warning. There is no time to hang on the motion of the room, for within seconds he is in the doorway. The camera moves in to an extreme close up of his deranged face framed by his wig. He grits his teeth and exclaims the unscripted line, “Class dismissed!”
In the script, his entrance is far more subtle. Rather than announcing himself and sending an eruption of terror through the room of unclothed teens, he follows silently after Jody and Kenny. He’s revealed only when he trips and falls, his face landing quite close to Heather as she fucks Dino. In some ways far more disturbing and invasive, this intrusion leads to a reaction that reveals his presence in the script.
Heather reacts to the strangely familiar yet horrifying face now inches from hers.
What takes several pages in the script amounts to seconds of screen time as the two versions of the story catch up to one another.
Other kids reel back in shock! They start to scramble away, a panic is about to begin.
Through a series of quick cuts, the film again shows couple after couple reacting and leaping up from their bedsheets. While most are in underwear, at least one incredibly quick cut reveals a moment of nudity that survived from the original uncut version that more closely resembled what was put forth in the script.
As on the page, Kenny and Jody are knocked around by the crowd. Once again, the script speaks in hyperbole not quite captured onscreen, Jody and Kenny disappear under a tangle of flashing arms, breasts, heads and sweaty bedsheets but the general thrust of the idea does come to pass. It’s then that Leonard begins to move through the sea of flesh with his knife at the ready, cutting through skin as though hacking through the brush while attempting to see his way through the jungle.
As scripted, Leonard starts to slash at the acres of flesh around him.
The script is peppered with a constant barrage of couples mid-coitus whereas the film sees Jody finding them snuggling or simply sleeping in one another’s arms. There’s a marked difference in the film’s willingness to express and showcase unbridled sexuality versus what appears on the page.
The stampede of interrupted fornicators makes its way to the staircase in the film, creating a bottleneck and sending a mass of mostly naked bodies toppling down the steps. On both the page and the screen, this incapacitates Deputy Mina as she makes her way up the stairs to the source of the commotion:
ZOOM in on Mina’s face as she sees . . .
A stampede of kids charging down on her.
In a close-up, her gun raised, the Deputy’s eyes turn to fear as she’s thrown against the wall and knocked out by mostly naked high schoolers. Shortly thereafter she’s covered in bodies with nowhere else to go. This is the first moment that the chaos of flesh so emphasized in the script feels as though it is living on screen. And, as the script notes, it’s complete madness and confusion, quite scary in itself.
This culminates when the balustrade breaks and the kids fall over the edge of the stairs. Several shots of the bodies upon bodies jammed into the stairwell from multiple angles coupled with the ominous creaking sounds of wood banisters that are being pushed far beyond their limits brings this to life onscreen. It also creates one of the more striking moments of the climax even without the inclusion of the film’s primary antagonist. Then, the image cuts to the exterior of the house as the tide of teens spills away from the den of sin as if they were escaping from a burning building.
After finding Wally and Jan naked and huddled together in the toilet, frightened, Jody turns to escape via a different path when she finally collides with Leonard. The film adds in a brief confrontation where Leonard tackles her and bears the knife down upon her in a high angle close up. She pushes it back but has a frightened and submissive look about her. That is when Kenny emerges, leaping onto Leonard and pulling him away, which is the moment the script jumps to immediately.
Leonard knocks Kenny back and slashes Kenny across the chest with a long, diagonal swipe. Jody screams and the image slows for a moment, allowing a protracted “Kenny!” to escape Jody’s lips. The script and the screen reflect that he’s alive but badly hurt and Jody shares a cold stare with Leonard. This is a beat that might be assumed in the text, but its visualization is not spelled out in any way.
Jody stares at Leonard, seeing a flash of her beloved teacher for a second or two while observing his psychotic visage. Her expression is not meek or shaken, but etched in resolve as more images of Leonard’s transgressions against her and the people she loves flash before her eyes. All the while, Leonard’s face turns from emotionless to one of inane excitement as he opens his mouth wide and lunges for Jody one final time.
Leonard charges at Jody who instinctively assumes the defensive stance that Brent taught her.
In a wide shot, Leonard is sent at a run through the glass doors leading out to the balcony behind them. He breaks the glass and topples through the air beyond, landing unceremoniously on the broken railing below. While the image doesn’t reflect the moment of impact, a loud, bloody squelch and a shot of the quiet full moon are enough context clues to establish how Leonard has met his sticky end.
Jody peers down at Leonard, surveying the aftermath of her teacher’s actions as the multitude of disrobed, adrenaline-fueled high-schoolers stare on in flabbergasted shock. The storm has passed and they are changed as a result, the reasons for which varying dramatically depending on who one might ask.
THE BLOODY CONCLUSION
“I’d always wanted to write a teen orgy and I realized that Hollywood probably wouldn’t make a film that just had a teen orgy in it,” screenwriter Ken Seldon said in the feature Lose it or Die: The Untold Story of Cherry Falls found on the Scream Factory Blu-ray disc, “but if you put a serial killer into the middle of the teen orgy, then they’d make it.”
After Scream, the teen slasher came out swinging, reemerging as something oh-so-familiar but with an edge of self-awareness that lent itself to deconstruction. While a great many films succeeded in capturing the hearts and minds of the general public, offering up that ideal balance of fun, terror and intelligence, not all landed with audiences with such aplomb.
Cherry Falls is at times disjointed, the script and the finished film somewhat disconnected from the tone the project as a whole was attempting to achieve. Of course, much of this is due to studio meddling and alterations that were neither approved by the director nor the writer, the film falling victim to a changing commercial world unwilling to allow such outrageous imagery to invade the minds of the youth.
And yet, it’s that very mindset that the film was attempting to challenge, carrying the slasher sub-genre’s tropes to the forefront in a blatant and hyperbolic way. A commentary on their purpose, impact, and overall relevance to the audience that these movies are so engineered to entertain.
So it is that the mass teenage orgy which falls in the final act of Cherry Falls best represents both its success and its shortcomings. A scene that was written to go as far as it possibly could, breaching the realm of satire, filmed in a manner far more befitting a serious horror film than an over-the-top one and finally hacked to pieces thereby significantly damaging its intended effect. And still, somehow, it plays just as insane, jaw-dropping, and memorable as one might expect.
In his commentary found on the aforementioned Blu-ray disc, director Geoffrey Wright mentions that he wanted to remind viewers that this sort of movie is about “not just the violence, but the sex.” Despite lamenting that so much was cut or, as he put it, “softened”, he was still incredibly proud of the final orgy and how “crazy” it was, finally settling on the notion that it all amounted to a “strange, surreal night”.
It’s difficult to know what might’ve transpired had the uncut version of Cherry Falls received the wide theatrical release it was intended to have. Whether or not the salacious audacity of the film would’ve connected with filmgoers or if it would’ve fallen on deaf ears, written off as yet another Scream knock-off at the time.
Regardless, the film is a slasher and, as such, is entitled to endless rebirth, reconsideration and, most important of all, relevance. It may not have played thousands of screens, but it introduced some of the most berserk imagery and situations a mainstream slasher flick had ever seen, furthering the creative deconstruction of the sub-genre and paving the way for what was to come in the mid to late 2000s and beyond. And, everything else aside, in my eyes, that makes it a success.
After all, if neutering the cut, letting it sit for a few years and dumping it on TV didn’t kill it, I think it’s safe to say this slasher, like so many of its brethren, will never have any trouble coming back for one last good scare.
