🍎 Forbidden Fruits Review: A Wicked Horror Comedy Where Mean Girls Become Witches
My Rating: ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ☆ 4.2/5
This Forbidden Fruits review takes you inside Free Eden, a trendy mall boutique hiding a secret coven. The staff sells clothes during the day and practices witchcraft after closing time. Lili Reinhart leads the sisterhood, and Lola Tung plays the new hire who starts asking the wrong questions. Think The Craft meets Mean Girls, with a shopping bag full of blood and a whole lot of retail attitude.
Forbidden Fruits Review: Mean Girls Taken to a Whole New Level
Remember when going to the mall meant shopping, hanging out with friends, and maybe getting something to eat at the food court?
Well, apparently some of the employees had other plans.
In Forbidden Fruits, a fashionable group of young women working at a shopping mall has formed a secret sisterhood.
They sell clothes during the day.
After closing time, they practice witchcraft.
And when a new employee enters their little circle, things become considerably more complicated.
Welcome to retail hell.
Forbidden Fruits had its world premiere at South by Southwest on March 16, 2026. Independent Film Company and Shudder opened it in theaters on March 27, 2026, with Universal handling international distribution. It began streaming on Shudder on June 26, 2026. The film runs 103 minutes and is rated R.
This Forbidden Fruits review stays spoiler free.
Welcome to Free Eden
The center of the story is Free Eden, a trendy boutique inside a shopping mall.
From the outside, it looks like another upscale retail shop.
Inside, however, the employees have created their own little world.
They have rules.
They have rituals.
And they have a leader who isn't particularly interested in having her authority questioned.
The fruits follow strict rules about their clothes, their looks, and how they deal with outsiders.
In the story, Free Eden sits inside a glossy Dallas mall. The production actually filmed in Toronto in the spring of 2025.
The main store set? A former Hollister, dressed up into something much more sinister.
You might want to reconsider filling out that job application.
Lili Reinhart Is the Queen of This Particular Mall
Lili Reinhart plays Apple, the charismatic leader of the group.
Reinhart is best known to many viewers for playing Betty Cooper on Riverdale.
She also played Annabelle in Hustlers, so she already knows a thing or two about tight crews with questionable methods.
Here, she's considerably less interested in solving mysteries than controlling the people around her.
Apple has built a carefully managed little kingdom inside Free Eden.
She expects loyalty.
She expects obedience.
And she definitely expects everyone to remember who's in charge.
Meet Cherry and Fig
Victoria Pedretti plays Cherry, while Alexandra Shipp plays Fig.
Together with Apple, they form the central trio running the store's secret sisterhood.
Cherry is the childlike one, fiercely devoted to Apple and protective of her spot as the favorite.
Fig is the most grounded of the three. She's the one who seems to remember there's a world outside the mall.
But friendships built around one dominant personality can become complicated.
Especially when the friendship also involves witchcraft.
The three women may look perfectly coordinated on the sales floor, but appearances can be deceiving.
Then Pumpkin Shows Up
Lola Tung plays Pumpkin, a newcomer who attracts the attention of Apple's group.
Tung is best known as Belly in The Summer I Turned Pretty.
When we meet Pumpkin, she works in the food court. Landing a spot at Free Eden is a serious promotion in mall society.
Pumpkin doesn't quite fit the carefully constructed world the others have created.
And that makes her interesting.
As she becomes involved with the sisterhood, she begins questioning things the other women have learned not to question.
Apple isn't accustomed to that.
Something tells me Pumpkin's employee orientation isn't going to go particularly well.
Everybody Has a Fruit Name
Apple.
Cherry.
Fig.
Pumpkin.
And then there's Pickle.
Yes, Pickle.
Before you write in, botanically speaking, a pumpkin really is a fruit. So is a cucumber, which is where every pickle starts out.
The unusual names give Forbidden Fruits a playful quality that fits its exaggerated world.
But underneath the colorful names and fashionable clothing is a story about identity, belonging, and pressure. The pressure to become whatever your friends expect you to be.
Emma Chamberlain Joins the Cast
Emma Chamberlain makes her feature-film acting debut as Pickle.
For viewers familiar with Chamberlain through her online career, her appearance adds another recognizable name to an already interesting cast.
Chamberlain told Jimmy Fallon that Pickle was the perfect size role for her first acting job.
She wanted to learn the ropes without the pressure of carrying the whole movie.
The movie uses its young ensemble to create a world where popularity, appearance, and social standing matter almost as much as the supernatural elements.
Gabrielle Union Adds Another Familiar Face
Gabrielle Union also appears as Sharon.
Union brings another recognizable name to the cast, having appeared in films including Bring It On, Bad Boys II, and Deliver Us from Eva.
She joined the cast in April 2025, fresh off Gotham and Spirit Award nominations for The Inspection.
For a relatively unusual horror comedy, Forbidden Fruits certainly doesn't lack familiar faces.
The Real Horror Might Be Working Retail
One of the movie's funniest ideas is placing a secret coven inside an ordinary shopping mall.
Think about it.
Retail already has its own strange rituals.
Dress codes.
Sales goals.
Employee meetings.
Managers who expect unquestioning loyalty.
And customers who apparently believe the entire world revolves around them.
Add witchcraft and suddenly the job doesn't seem all that different.
Anyone who ever worked a holiday rush already knows the feeling.
After the Mall Closes, the Real Fun Begins
There's something wonderfully creepy about a shopping mall after closing time.
The stores are dark.
The crowds are gone.
The escalators are quiet.
And those enormous hallways suddenly feel much less welcoming.
Forbidden Fruits uses that familiar environment as the setting for something considerably stranger than an ordinary night shift.
The coven gathers in the basement beneath the store once the gates come down.
That's where the rituals happen.
For Kilroy, the mall setting is one of the movie's strongest attractions.
The Craft Meets Mean Girls
It's difficult to watch the premise of Forbidden Fruits without thinking about two earlier movies.
The Craft gave us teenage witchcraft, friendship, jealousy, and supernatural power.
Mean Girls gave us popularity, social manipulation, and the unpleasant consequences of belonging to the wrong clique.
Forbidden Fruits mixes those ingredients with a much more exaggerated sense of humor.
TheWrap made the same comparison, and even tossed a little The Devil Wears Prada into the blender.
The result is a horror comedy that understands how frightening a group of friends can become when friendship starts resembling a dictatorship.
These Witches Have Some Serious Friendship Problems
The supernatural elements may attract viewers, but the relationships are what drive the story.
Who gets included?
Who gets excluded?
Who makes the rules?
And what happens when someone refuses to follow them?
Those questions become increasingly important as the carefully managed sisterhood begins showing cracks.
Sometimes the most dangerous person in the room isn't the one casting spells.
It's the one telling everybody else what to do.
Lili Reinhart Gets to Be Deliciously Awful
Apple is the kind of character who can smile while making someone else's life miserable.
That's an entertaining role for an actor willing to embrace it.
Reinhart gives the movie a central personality around whom the other characters revolve.
Whether you find Apple funny, frightening, irritating, or all three, she's difficult to ignore.
And that's exactly what a character like this needs.
Victoria Pedretti Knows Her Way Around Horror
Horror fans should recognize Victoria Pedretti from The Haunting of Hill House and The Haunting of Bly Manor.
She played Nell Crain in Hill House and Dani Clayton in Bly Manor.
She's also known for her work on You.
On that show, she played Love Quinn, a woman with a few secrets of her own.
Her presence gives Forbidden Fruits another connection to modern horror and psychological thrillers.
But this time, the setting is considerably more colorful than a haunted mansion.
Alexandra Shipp Brings Another Dimension to the Group
Alexandra Shipp plays Fig, another member of Apple's inner circle.
Shipp has appeared in major productions including X-Men: Apocalypse and Barbie.
In X-Men: Apocalypse, she played a young Storm.
Here, she joins an ensemble where the relationships between the women matter more than elaborate supernatural spectacle.
Fig helps establish that this isn't simply Apple's story.
It's about what happens to an entire group when the person holding everyone together begins losing control.
Diablo Cody’s Name Makes Perfect Sense Here
One of the film's producers is Diablo Cody, the Oscar-winning screenwriter behind Juno and the writer of Jennifer's Body.
That connection is especially interesting.
Jennifer's Body mixed horror, female friendship, dark comedy, and social commentary.
Forbidden Fruits explores some related territory, although through a different story and creative team.
Cody didn't direct or write Forbidden Fruits, but her involvement makes sense given the material.
She produced it alongside Mason Novick, Mary Anne Waterhouse, and Trent Hubbard.
Cody has called it one of the wildest and most creative projects she has ever worked on. Coming from her, that's saying something.
Meredith Alloway Makes Her Feature Directorial Debut
Forbidden Fruits marks the feature directing debut of Meredith Alloway.
Alloway also co-wrote the screenplay with Lily Houghton.
The movie is adapted from Houghton's stage play Of the Woman Came the Beginning of Sin, and Through Her We All Die.
That's quite a title.
And it gives the movie an interesting background.
Houghton's play premiered Off Broadway in 2019.
Before this, Alloway had directed short films. She and Houghton wrote the screenplay on spec and pitched it to producers themselves.
A story originally developed for the stage has become a colorful horror comedy set inside a shopping mall.
This Is Horror with a Sense of Humor
Don't expect Forbidden Fruits to behave like a traditional supernatural horror movie.
It's deliberately exaggerated.
The characters can be ridiculous.
The dialogue can be sharp.
And the movie frequently seems more interested in making you laugh uncomfortably than making you jump out of your chair.
That doesn't mean the horror disappears.
It means the movie enjoys mixing the nasty stuff with the funny stuff.
The Colorful Look Is Part of the Joke
A secret witch cult might suggest black robes, candles, and a gloomy old basement.
Forbidden Fruits gives us fashionable clothing, carefully managed appearances, and a shopping mall.
That contrast is part of its personality.
The colorful retail environment makes the darker material stand out.
Karim Hussain shot the film, and Ciara Vernon handled production design.
Anna Drubich composed the score, and Hanna Park edited.
It's an interesting reminder that horror doesn't always need everything painted black.
When Friendship Turns into Control
Underneath the comedy is a recognizable problem.
Some friendships are less about caring for one another than maintaining power.
One person makes the decisions.
Everyone else agrees.
And anyone who questions the arrangement suddenly becomes the enemy.
Forbidden Fruits takes that familiar social dynamic and adds supernatural consequences.
Apparently being kicked out of the group chat wasn't punishment enough.
Don’t Expect a Traditional Witch Movie
Anyone expecting a serious occult thriller may be surprised.
Forbidden Fruits is a satirical horror comedy.
Its interest in friendship, popularity, manipulation, and social behavior is just as important as the witchcraft.
The supernatural elements are part of the entertainment, but they aren't the entire point.
Knowing that before watching will probably help viewers appreciate what the filmmakers are attempting.
The Movie Isn’t Afraid to Get Nasty
Despite the colorful setting and comedic tone, Forbidden Fruits carries an R rating.
This isn't a harmless teen comedy with a few magic tricks.
The movie includes strong violent content and gore, along with adult language and sexual material.
The official rating also lists nudity and brief drug use.
The cheerful shopping-mall atmosphere shouldn't fool anyone into expecting family entertainment.
Leave the kids at the food court for this one.
Don’t Look Up What Happens to the Coven
This is another movie where knowing too much beforehand can spoil the experience.
The basic premise is enough.
A group of women runs a secret witch cult inside a shopping mall.
A newcomer threatens their carefully constructed sisterhood.
Things begin going wrong.
That's all you need.
I'm not going to reveal what happens to Apple, Pumpkin, Cherry, Fig, or anyone else.
This Forbidden Fruits review keeps every secret locked in the stockroom.
Watch the movie and discover that for yourself.
Why Forbidden Fruits Is Worth Watching
The premise alone makes Forbidden Fruits stand out.
There are plenty of witch movies.
There are plenty of horror comedies.
And there are plenty of movies about toxic friendships.
But a secret coven operating out of a fashionable shopping-mall store is a combination you don't encounter every day.
Add the recognizable cast and exaggerated sense of humor, and there's enough here to make the movie worth investigating.
Critics mostly agreed, and the film earned a fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
The fans even gave themselves a name before release. They call themselves The Fruit Basket.
Does Forbidden Fruits Work as Horror?
That depends partly on what you're expecting.
If you want nonstop scares, frightening supernatural imagery, and a serious atmosphere, this probably isn't the movie you're looking for.
If you enjoy horror comedies that mix nasty behavior, absurd situations, witchcraft, and social satire, there's considerably more to appreciate.
The movie is interested in making its audience uncomfortable, but it also wants them laughing at the ridiculousness of the situation.
One critic at TheWrap admitted to being a big scaredy cat and still found it manageable.
So the honest answer in this Forbidden Fruits review is yes, as long as you came for dark comedy first.
Who Should Watch Forbidden Fruits?
Forbidden Fruits is worth considering for fans of The Craft, Mean Girls, Heathers, Jennifer's Body, witchcraft movies, and dark comedies.
It also fits fans of shopping-mall nostalgia and horror stories about friendships gone horribly wrong.
It's especially appealing to viewers who enjoy horror that doesn't take itself too seriously.
At 103 minutes, it doesn't overstay its welcome either.
Just don't mistake the bright colors for a promise that everyone will behave nicely.
Final Thoughts 4.2/5
This one earns a 4.2 out of 5 from Kilroy. Wrapping up this Forbidden Fruits review, the mall coven delivers sharp laughs, nasty surprises, and a cast clearly having a blast. A few moments lean more silly than scary, but that is part of the fun. Meredith Alloway announces herself as a director worth watching.
"A wickedly funny, bloody mall coven comedy with a killer cast."
ML Lamp, Kilroy Was Here Shop
Forbidden Fruits takes the familiar idea of a secret witch coven and moves it somewhere wonderfully ordinary:
the shopping mall.
Instead of ancient castles and mysterious villages, we get fashionable employees, retail politics, and friendship problems.
We also get a group of women who have apparently taken workplace loyalty considerably too far.
Lili Reinhart leads an entertaining ensemble, while the movie's mixture of witchcraft, black comedy, and exaggerated social behavior gives it a personality of its own.
It isn't traditional supernatural horror.
And it isn't trying to be.
Sometimes the most interesting horror comes from taking an ordinary place and revealing something completely ridiculous hiding behind the employees-only door.
Next time a sales associate asks if you'd like to join their rewards program, make sure they're talking about store discounts. Not a blood oath.
