Get laid... or die!
A 2000 Teen Slasher Movie starring Brittany Murphy, Jay Mohr, Gabriel Mann, and Michael Biehn.
Someone is killing high school teenagers in the town of Cherry Falls, Virginia. During the investigation, the police finds out that the killer is specifically targeting the virgins. When the teens learn about this tiny tidbit, plans for huge sexfest is put into motion. But the killer is actually only going after certain people...
This films has examples of:
- An Arm and a Leg: Mina shoots Leonard's hand off when he tries to grab a guy by the hair after being impaled. Moments later, it's shown the severed hand is still attached to the guy's hair.
- Auto Erotica: Two instances of it, both within the first ten minutes of the film.
- Awful Wedded Life: Sandy says that after 25 years of marriage, all her parents do together anymore is watch TV.
- Axe Before Entering: The killer uses an axe to break down the door of Leonard's house.
- Big Bad: Leonard.
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Leonard comes across as a well meaning teacher who cares about his students even if he can be tactless on occasion. He's actually the killer and murders a good chunk of his class.
- Bound and Gagged: Sheriff Marken wakes to find himself bound to a chair and gagged with duct tape in the killer's Torture Cellar, as does Jody.
- Boyfriend-Blocking Dad: Inverted. In this scene
, Sheriff Brent Marken asks his virginal daughter Jody to go all the way because the serial killer he's after only targets virgins. - Brutal Honesty: See the Wham Line.
- Bury Your Gays: Jody's good friend Timmy is Killed Offscreen by the killer, technically the fourth victim but the first to die close to Jody.
- Calling Card: The killer leaves the word "virgin" on the victims.
- Chekhov's Skill: Jody's self-defense lessons that her father taught to her.
- Child by Rape: The killer reveals he was born from the Sheriff and his friends drunkenly raping Loralee Sherman several years ago.
- Creative Closing Credits: The closing credits scroll up rather than down.
- Creepy Crossdresser: While committing murders, Leonard Marliston dresses like his mother.
- Cruel and Unusual Death: Stacy is nailed to a tree while she's still alive.
- Description Cut: After Sandy doubts boys are as clueless at sex as Cindy claims, the scene cuts to Ben and his friends in their van, debating how many holes a vagina has.
- Didn't Think This Through: A pretty grisly example of one: Slasher Film villains are, first and foremost, demented killers, and won't just give up at the first sign of their quarry Moving the Goalposts. The teens probably would have been better off leaving town than having an orgy.
- Disguised in Drag: The killer dresses as a woman while committing the murders.
- Double Standard: Rape, Male on Male: When the Sheriff recounts how the rape really happened, what happened was that his friends held Loralee down, while they dragged him and forced him to penetrate her. This is considered as if the Sheriff was the rapist in this situation, however, considering he was too drunk to fight back, let alone consent while his friends forced him into that position and act, it's never raised the point that in this case, he was also a victim of the situation. It's noticeable that he himself seems to think that he was the rapist in the situation because he was just barely conscious during it.
- Double Tap: Why, thank you, Deputy Mina.
- The End... Or Is It?: After giving her statement to the police near the end, Jody sees Leonard disappearing behind a bus.
- Ethical Slut: Cindy. The Serial Killer only targets virgins, and the teenagers figure this out, hosting an orgy in order to stay alive. Cindy, one of the experienced girls, tells the other girls that they need to manage their expectations and not to expect orgasms from the boys.
- Fat and Skinny: Dino (fat) and Wally (played by the very skinny DJ Qualls) sit together in class and the cafeteria and approach girls together at the pre-orgy dance.
- Final Girl: Jody, though mainly out of virtue of being the main target and taking the fight to the killer, as Kenny, a guy, survives as well, as do several of their friends.
- Freudian Excuse: Loralee beat Leonard throughout his childhood, resulting in him becoming the Ax-Crazy and mommy issues ridden killer that he is now.
- Gay Best Friend: Jody's close friend is Timmy and he's gay.
- Girls Love Stuffed Animals: Jody sleeps with a toy rabbit.
- Guns Akimbo: After the fall fails to do the killer in, Deputy Mina comes to the rescue with two handguns.
- I Kiss Your Foot: Jody tells her boyfriend Kenny to bite her toe and as he sucks her toe, she continuously tells him to "bite harder" as she slaps his face with her other foot.
- Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: The killer falls over a balcony and is impaled on debris below.
- Incest Subtext: A lot between Jody and her father. He praises her for still being his little girl and shows a great deal of interest in her sex life (though it's fairly justified given the plot). She also textually has a crush on her teacher — who is also her half-brother via her dad. He even remarks on the resemblance between them when kidnapping her at the end.
- Kiss of Death: The killer gives a kiss to Stacy before killing her.
- Lady Drunk: Jody's mom is suggested to be an Alcoholic Parent.
- Loophole Abuse: "A serial slasher who's targeting virgins? Ha, we'll all just throw an orgy and lose our virginity!" Unfortunately for them, just because the kids found a loophole in the M.O. doesn't mean the killer would just pick up their ball and go home, and now they're all trapped in one place.
- Luke, You Are My Father: The Serial Killer targeting virgins Marliston is strongly implied to be the son of Sheriff Brent conceived through rape 25 years ago, making him the protagonist Jody's older half brother.
- Make-Out Point: The falls, where the first murder occurs.
- Meaningful Name: Cherry Falls, Virginia. What is the killer's apparent motive initially?
- Must Not Die a Virgin: Is taken up to eleven because the killer stalks virgins and having sex means survival.
- My Girl Is a Slut: This trope is discussed during this dialog between Ben and Cindy who is the village bicycle:Ben: Jackhole, you're not playing Deathquake. This is the real world.
Mark: Fuck you.
Cindy: It's Ben's pathetic concept of cool, just to pretend he's not afraid.
Ben: Hello, Cindy Freud. What's your concept of cool? Bang the entire class starting with "A"?
Cindy: If I'm what you just said, why do you try to hook me up nonstop?
Ben: I find the experience attractive. - No Kill like Overkill: When the killer proves to be Not Quite Dead, Deputy Mina comes out firing into his body Guns Akimbo and does not stop till both semi-autos are empty.
- Not Quite Dead: The killer at the end, complete with Eye Awaken. Deputy Mina quickly takes care of this.
- A Party, Also Known as an Orgy: Justified, the party is called "Pop Your Cherry Ball".
- Pastiche: Of Wes Craven. There's a past rape that drives someone to murder and theme of Sins of Our Fathers that leads to mass teenage murder (A Nightmare on Elm Street), a rape-revenge story (The Last House on the Left), all topped off with a snarky, witty group of quirky, self-aware, sexually-active teens (Scream).
- Peek-a-Boo Corpse: Timmy's corpse in the locker.
- The Place: Cherry Falls is the name of the town where the killings occur. (Of course, 'cherry' has a double meaning in this case.)
- Pre-Mortem One-Liner: "CLASS DISMISSED!"
- Psychosexual Horror: The slasher is a teacher named Leonard, who is the product of rape between his mother and the local sheriff, while in high school. Leonard is mistreated during his childhood and, as an adult, returns to the titular Cherry Falls, where they begin their killing spree, targeting only virgins, under the cross-dressing disguise of a younger version of their mother. After killing enough teens, the remaining student body decides to hold an orgiastic party where they can "lose their cherries", so they may not be targeted by the killer.
- Rape Leads to Insanity: Although she was always 'weird', Loralee is suggested to have gone from being a relatively nice, sweet girl to an abusive monster who repeatedly beat her son while chaining him up in his bedroom after being gang-raped. He says that it was even worse because Loralee had a genuine crush on Marken.
- Recut: The film had the unfortunate timing of being produced within the media landscape of the Columbine High School massacre, and it was submitted to the MPAA at least five times before a severely cut version was finally approved. The film's US theatrical release was ultimately canceled, and it instead premiered on cable. An uncut edition has yet to see the light of day, and according to the director, may no longer exist.
- The Reveal:
- The female killer is actually the teacher Leonard in drag.
- Moreover, Leonard was the result of Loralee Sherman's rape 27 years ago, and is the son of the Sheriff, and subsequently Jody's half-brother.
- Recycled IN SPACE!: It's basically a combination of Scream and Psycho WITH LOTS OF SEX!
- Sex as Rite-of-Passage: This Slasher Film plays with the idea of a Rare Female Example; the serial killer only targets virgins and the teens realize that they need to have sex in order to stay alive. Cindy, the most experienced of the girls, holds her pre-game talk with the other girls to prepare them because a lot of the guys are also virgins:Cindy: "Girls have to everything. Guys are clueless when it comes to sex. It starts with them trying to unhook our bras, fumbling around, and it never changes. Wait until they try to put their dick into you."
Jan: "Please don't say they need help with that."
Cindy: "Always." - Sex Signals Death: Played with and subverted. The slasher begins by targeting teens who are virgins. Then the teens try to lose their virginities and the orgy becomes a target of opportunity.
- Shipper on Deck: Jody drags Sandy over and sits her down next to her crush Mark upon seeing she's too shy to do so herself.
- Sins of Our Fathers: Loralee's rape at the hands of seniors 27 years ago is the reason for the bloodbath taking place now.
- Slashed Throat: Kenny gets his throat slit.
- Strapped to an Operating Table: After discovering her father in the trunk, Jody receives a Tap on the Head and wakes up to discover she is strapped to an operating table in the killer's Torture Cellar.
- Tap on the Head: The killer knocks Sheriff Marken out by hitting him over the head with a trophy in the principal's office. Later, he knocks out Jody when she discovers her father bound and gagged in the trunk. Neither suffers any long-term effects from the blow.
- Teacher/Student Romance: Jody wants one with Leonard, her English teacher. And her half-brother.
- Torture Cellar: The basement of the abandoned Sherman house.
- Wham LineJody: [While helping Leonard carry a heavy trunk down to his basement] What's in this trunk?Leonard: Your dad. Maybe mine.
- Wrong Genre Savvy: the teens incorrectly believe this is the kind of slasher bound to his own rules which they can use to their own advantage.
