The mall turns into a stage for small cruelties and strange rituals in Forbidden Fruits, a comedy-horror that follows Apple and her coworkers as they maintain a secret coven after hours. Led by Lili Reinhart, the group includes Victoria Pedretti, Alexandra Shipp, and the newcomer Lola Tung, whose arrival as Pumpkin pushes the clique toward darker choices and violent consequences. Directed by Meredith Alloway and adapted from Lily Houghton’s play, the film blends teen-group dynamics with supernatural elements, all wrapped in a neon-tinged retail environment. The production, produced by Diablo Cody and distributed by IFC, opened widely on March 27, 2026.
While the story is anchored in a single retail location, the cast brings a variety of screen histories that shape how we read each performance. This piece maps those credits and highlights why this ensemble feels at once familiar and refreshingly new. You’ll also find context about Alloway’s creative choices, including her deliberate relocation of the tale to Dallas and how that city’s mall culture becomes a character in its own right. If you notice echoes of other films or TV shows when you watch, that recognition is intentional: the movie invites viewers to spot the references and to re-evaluate known faces in unfamiliar parts.
From playhouse to mall: adaptation and setting
Turning a stage piece into a film
The script for the movie grew out of Lily Houghton’s play, which staged a witchy sisterhood beneath the floorboards of a clothing store. When Meredith Alloway read the theatre piece, she envisioned a cinematic version that preserved the intimate pressure-cooker of a small cast while expanding its visual life. Alloway retained the concentrated-setting energy of the original, embracing what she calls a single-location film approach to keep the story claustrophobic and intense. That theatrical lineage explains much of the movie’s rhythm: dialogue-driven scenes, sharp emotional pivots, and a sense that the mall is less a backdrop and more an ecosystem where rules and hierarchies are constantly being enforced.
Why Dallas became the story’s home
Alloway insisted on transplanting the action to Dallas, a place she knows well from childhood and film school. Her upbringing — including weekend walks through Blockbuster and early short films made with friends — informs the movie’s texture. The mall in this version functions as a cross-section of suburban life, where retail workers, shoppers, and managers collide. Even though principal photography took place in Toronto, the film leans into Texas cultural markers to create a specific atmosphere: sun-bleached fashion, regional customer attitudes, and the uncanny intimacy of a space that sees both community and alienation. For Alloway, those choices help the story examine belonging and the price of conformity.
Cast breakdown: familiar performers, unexpected directions
Lili Reinhart’s sharp leadership and the villainous flip
Best known to many viewers as Betty Cooper on Riverdale, Lili Reinhart takes a darker turn as Apple, the hair-trigger leader with magnetic control over customers and colleagues. Reinhart’s recent credits include the Charlie’s Angels reboot and the romantic comedy Look Both Ways, and she has an anticipated role in the screen adaptation of Ali Hazelwood’s The Love Hypothesis. In Forbidden Fruits, Reinhart is directed away from sympathetic ingénue parts and toward a performance that combines menace, glamour, and an unsettling charisma. That pivot makes her presence both recognizable and newly charged.
Pedretti, Shipp and Tung: chemistry and contrast
Victoria Pedretti arrives with a reputation for evocative, often haunting turns in series like The Haunting of Bly Manor and You, and she brings a quirky comedic edge here that undercuts expectations. Alexandra Shipp, whose credits range from the X-Men franchise (as Storm) to recent comedies like Anyone But You and Barbie, adds both levity and emotional range. She’s also been noted for memorable appearances in music videos that play with queer imagery. Lola Tung, the youngest of the quartet, is known for starring in The Summer I Turned Pretty and demonstrates surprising ferocity as Pumpkin. Together the four create a dynamic in which each familiar résumé is used to subvert typecasting.
Style, tone and what to expect
The film’s visual language favors bright, Y2K-tinged palettes and costume choices that announce personality before dialogue does. Stylistically, Forbidden Fruits sits somewhere between teen clique satire and supernatural horror, an approach that recalls films like The Craft but filtered through a sharper teen-comedy sensibility. The screenplay mixes pop-culture references with ritualized language, and the rituals themselves swap esoteric language for Britney-era lyricism and modern snark. The result is a picture that’s energetic and often hilarious, though its pivot toward visceral violence in the final act divides viewers — the shift amplifies stakes but also changes the film’s tonal contract. For audiences who enjoy electric performances, precise production design, and a mash-up of dark comedy and thrills, the movie will feel like an appetizingly strange treat.
Final note
Whether you go for the cast chemistry, the Dallas-flavored design, or the premise’s blend of sisterhood and menace, Forbidden Fruits is a picture aimed at viewers who like to be surprised by familiar faces. It’s a film that invites repeat viewings to catch the visual jokes and performance choices that turn known credits into new, sometimes unsettling, work.