YMMV / Cherry Falls

• Captain Obvious Reveal: The long hair on the killer and the fact that the shot is careful not to reveal a face, as well as there being no apparent female culprits makes it easy to telegraph that it's likely a man in a wig, especially since the voice calling to Annette sounds a lot like a man imitating a woman.
• Cult Classic: Although it didn't make much of a headway in 2000, due to no theatrical release in the US, it's frequently named as a hidden gem from the second wave of slashers.
• Fan-Preferred Cut Content: Fans await a release of the uncut version Geoffrey Wright filmed, especially of the sex party sequence.
• Fridge Brilliance: Jodie thinks she sees someone when she's in class with Leonard. Since he's the killer, she shouldn't have seen anyone. But in a later scene, Kenny mentions having seen the two together, so it's him that Jodie saw.
• Ham and Cheese: Once he's revealed as the killer, Jay Mohr chews the scenery and is having a great time hamming it up.
• Harsher in Hindsight: Brittany Murphy as the film's Final Girl can be quite sad in light of how she herself would die only nine years after its release, with all her cast members outliving her.
• Jerkass Woobie: The barely seen Loralee Sherman. She was the victim of an assault and rape, at the (albeit unwilling) hands of a boy she had a crush on, and had sought those boys for help because of her crush on Brent. Jerkass however because she was horrifically abusive to the child of that rape and that resulted in him becoming a killer.
• Just Here for Godzilla: Fans of Brittany Murphy will happily check it out as one of her pre-8 Mile roles.
• Narm Charm: The climax is Jay Mohr running around trying to kill teenagers in a Little Black Dress, makeup and long black wig, which should be utterly ridiculous, but just works in the context of the story.
• Retroactive Recognition: Mark is played by Douglas Spain, who'd be better known for Band of Brothers just one year later.
• Values Dissonance:
  • Brent's dark secret is that his friends forced him to rape Loralee Sherman while he was drunk and only dimly aware of what he was doing. Except that does not make him a rapist. He was drunk and therefore unable to consent, and makes it clear he wouldn't have done it had his friends not physically propped his body up. This in fact makes him a victim of sexual assault. One could hand wave his attitude as the kind of victim blaming a victim is prone to doing to themselves, especially in a time when sexual assault of men was never even talked about.
• Values Resonance: The film's central tension results from the rape of a young woman by Jerk Jocks, who got away without any consequences, with Jodie's mother even saying it was to avoid ruining their futures, and Jodie then being disgusted at the news. It holds up even better in the wake of the Me Too and Time's Up movements.
• The Woobie: Brent Marken once The Reveal happens. He was drunk one night and his friends used his body against his will, forcing him to rape Loralee Sherman, effectively making him a victim of sexual assault too. And he spends the film worrying that his daughter is in danger, and then learns that the killer is his son conceived in that rape, who blames him for his mother's abuse of him.