My Cherry Pie (2021) - Horror Film Review

My Cherry Pie is an Australian horror film that was written by Addison Heath (Vampires Prefer Black), and co-directed by them and Jasmine Jakupi. It's off kilter feel brought to mind early Peter Jackson movies like Bad Taste, while its plot felt like an indie version of House of 1000 Corpses.

Freddy (Sotiris Tzelios), Green (Tim Jason Wicks), and Jack (Dylan Heath) are three low level criminals who are on the run after Freddy stabbed some people to death shortly after being released from prison. Out in the country, Jack's car breaks down, but they are soon spotted by local man Edwin (Glenn Maynard), he offers the trio a place to spend the night at his property, with the promise that come morning he will tow their car to a mechanic. He leads them to his home, a former hospital, now converted into a place where him and his niece, the titular Cherry (Trudi Ranik), lives. With it at first seeming that the criminals might decide to get up to no good, it soon becomes clear that maybe Edwin and Cherry are the more dangerous of the two groups, and that they might have something to do with a notorious serial killer operating in the area.

This had a relatively small cast in terms of characters that get decent screen time, but it featured more than one stand-out actor. The characters here are larger than life, with a feeling of comedy to the exaggerated reactions and behaviour of the group. An early highlight were the three criminals and their behaviour with each other. Suit wearing Jack was constantly stressed and complaining from his very first appearance, Green was forever more chilled out, giving the two a humorous odd-couple feel. From the moment Tzelios' character had a shave he was another character who shined with his reckless feel that felt like he could erupt into violence at any moment, though he seldom did. Later it was Maynard's Edwin who began to shine, especially with one scene in which he retells a story about his family's tragic past. Due to the protagonists being bad people, when the horror starts it felt less serious than it could have, while not evil people, they were chaotic idiots, and what happens was darkly amusing at times.

There was quite a bit of blood throughout My Cherry Pie, with even the less stabby kills leading to lots of the red stuff. A hand is severed, heads are cut off, and axes are stuck blade deep into characters heads, all practical effects, and all looking deliciously wonderful.
The plot itself was quite simple, and it doesn't really try and do any deep twists. When I saw the serial killer in the prologue, I already had a good idea of who would be under the plague doctor outfit, I was right, but this reveal happens not long into the second act, and so I don't believe it was ever meant to be some big secret. I liked how this initially felt like two different films, comedic crime thriller, and crazed slasher flick, the two merge together in a way that really worked at merging the two worlds together, with a key dinner scene being when it really felt like the film was coming together in a satisfying way.

My Cherry Pie was an entertaining horror that had a great mix of eclectic characters, while not skimping on blood and guts. Some elements didn't work quite so well (such as the two twins), but having likeable, yet also deserving victims with their larger than life personas made much of the movie fun to experience. My Cherry Pie came to region free Blu-ray on 30th May from VIPCO & BayView Entertainment.

SCORE: