Cherry Falls (2000)

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General		Extras
Category	Horror	Main Menu Audio Theatrical Trailer Biographies-Cast-Brittany Murphy, Michael Biehn, Gabriel Mann and Jay Mohr Synopsis Production Notes
Rating
Year Of Production	2000
Running Time	87:30 (Case: 90)
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	4	Directed By	Geoffrey Wright
Studio Distributor	Rogue Pictures Magna Home Entertainment	Starring	Brittany Murphy Michael Biehn Gabriel Mann Jay Mohr
Case	Click
RPI	$29.95	Music	Walter Werzowa

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.78:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	1.85:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	None	Smoking	Yes
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    Cherry Falls is quite a departure for director Geoffrey Wright. His initial foray into movies was also a very lightweight effort called Lover Boy, but his subsequent offerings, the apocryphal Romper Stomper (which has now garnered much notice due to the presence of Russell Crowe) and Metal Skin, both reflect a darker and much more seedy side of life.

    It is therefore interesting that Wright chose to return to mainstream movie-making (he's also done an animated movie, the Silver Surfer, in between) with what can only be categorised as a 'teen scream' movie. Certainly there is that sense of the dark humour that infected his other movies, but considering the genre, even this fails to totally enliven a rather dull script and even though he manages to 'twist the tail' on the standard plot devices to some degree within the movie it still turns out a little flat.

    Cherry Falls is your typical, average, small town except there have been three murders in the past couple of days. The victims are all young with the words 'virgin' etched into their bodies and the local sheriff (Michael Biehn) is worried this is the work of a serial killer.

    Driven by a dark secret from his past which he has concealed for many years and out of concern for his teenage daughter Jody (Brittany Murphy), he calls a town meeting where he is overheard divulging the details of the murders to concerned parents. The teenagers of the town, realising that any one still a virgin is vulnerable, decide to hold a "Pop your Cherry" party and go out with a bang (sic).

    As with every movie of this ilk there is plenty of bloodshed, although I believe the censors cut this to the bone (sic), however it is presented more 'tastefully' than usual, with the gory bits being offered for mere split seconds thereby removing the 'queasy' element to a degree. The psycho villain is quite suitably shrouded until the last few minutes of the movie (but it isn't that hard to work out who it is) and the body count starts off slowly but grows towards the end with some quite amusing 'dark humour' thrown in for good measure.

    There are some decent enough acting performances in this movie. Michael Biehn is suitably paranoid, Jay Mohr (Jerry Maguire) is good as the concerned teacher and partial focal point of Brittany Murphy who is also cast as the unlikely 'heroine' of the piece. I admit, I am not a great fan of this genre, but I had no problem watching this fairly lightweight movie, but I believe the comment at the end of the movie fairly summed up my feelings towards it quite adequately.

    "No virgins were harmed in the making of this motion picture..."

Video

    I only have one bone to pick with this disc: it's just a tad on the soft side. Apart from that, and considering this was a 'direct-to-video' release, this is an excellent transfer.

    Since this movie never made it to the theatre I guess the original theatrical aspect ratio is a tad redundant. This transfer is in an aspect ratio of 1.78:1 and is 16x9 enhanced whereas the original was nominally at 1.85:1.

    The movie starts out very slightly fuzzy and becomes a little blurrier further in but it isn't too bad. Apart from this fuzziness, there is plenty of fine detail to be had in most shots and there is only minimal edge enhancement on offer. There are low levels of grain visible throughout the movie with some diminishment of shadow detail as a result, but overall this is a very acceptable transfer all round. Low level noise was not an issue even in the darker scenes.

    The colour on display is mostly bright without too much vibrancy. Skin tones are excellent and the palette used was very suitable. There was no colour bleed or oversaturation on offer.

    The most pleasing aspect of the whole transfer was the almost total lack of artefacts on offer. There were no noticeable MPEG artefacts to be seen and the usual shimmering and aliasing was pleasantly absent throughout. There were a couple of film artefacts, mainly of the more annoying white fleck variety, at 22:11 (next to the Coroner's nose), 31:30 (near the stairs) and at 44:25. At 42:33, a random frame has been left in the final edit which sticks out like a sore thumb. Apart from these few problems this is possibly the cleanest transfer I've seen in quite a while.

There are no subtitles on offer on this disc.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    A little less exciting than the video since this is offered to us with a fairly standard English Dolby Digital 2.0 soundtrack at 192 kilobits per second. There is nothing to get overly excited about since this is the only track on the disc. The sound is totally centred in the front channels but with a good spatial spread giving it a solid quality, without being exceptional.

    The dialogue was pretty good through the whole movie with one exception at 50:15 when the voices are indistinct. Quite possibly this was meant to be since the camera panned into the scene, so maybe we weren't meant to hear them until the camera drew close. There was some hollowness to the overall sound with the voices, but generally it wasn't too much of an issue. I couldn't detect any syncing problems.

    The music, credited to Walter Werzowa, was quite interesting. It consisted of your standard theme music, some nice rock interludes, especially during the chase scenes and some special effects to drive the moods along. Many times during the movie the music becomes nothing more than a background thrum similar to a heartbeat and some overlaid voices. The overall effect was quite good and certainly added substantially to the overall ambience.

This disc has no surround or LFE channel usage.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

Main Menu Audio

Theatrical Trailer

Biographies-Cast

Synopsis

Production Notes

    There is censorship information available for this title. Click here to read it (a new window will open). WARNING: Often these entries contain MAJOR plot spoilers.

    There is an R1 version of this movie available as a dual release with another movie called Terror Tract. There is also an unexpurgated version (I am reliably informed) available in R3 format. I would therefore leave the choice of version to the buyer.

    Cherry Falls is a pretty typical 'teen scream' movie in my opinion, with a dose of dark humour thrown in. There are some amusing moments, but overall this was pretty standard fare for the genre. Nonetheless, it is well worth a watch. The video is excellent if a little indistinct, with few transfer problems. The audio is pretty standard for a low budget movie being all frontally-focussed. There is a dearth of extras.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall