Abhiroop Das
Helmed by Meredith Alloway, ‘Forbidden Fruits’ steps into the surreal lives of Pumpkin, Apple, Fig, and Cherry, who are employees at a top rung boutique by day, and members of a cult-like group by night. While they are united in their radical views about men and the importance of sisterhood, Pumpkin cannot help but feel that something is off. All of it boils down to Apple’s unusual, almost controlling grip over her friends’ lives, and as she clashes with Pumpkin in the subtlest of ways, everything begins to come tumbling down. At the end of this horror–comedy movie, which is based on Lily Houghton’s play, titled ‘Of the woman came the beginning of sin, and through her we all die’, Pumpkin confronts Apple based on everything she is, and everything that she represents. SPOILERS AHEAD.
Forbidden Fruits Plot Synopsis
‘Forbidden Fruits’ begins with an unusual introduction to our unusual main characters: Apple, Fig, and Cherry. Apart from their similarly themed names, the trio also works at the most elite boutique in Highland Place Mall, named Free Eden. Though everyone tries to maintain their distance from the trio out of fear and perhaps silent admiration, that doesn’t deter Pumpkin from trying to make an impression. While she is working at a pretzel store for now, she has ambitions to rule the fashion industry, and more than Free Eden, it’s a chance to work with Apple and the company that drew her into the scene. Before long, she gets shortlisted for a brief interview, but it’s with a catch: She must come back and stay in the mall until it’s the dead of the night, and then make her way back to Free Eden.
After Pumpkin follows every rule to a T, she walks into Apple, Fig, and Cherry, wearing mysterious garbs. Things get progressively more bizarre as they sit down at a table and begin speaking cryptically and performing occult rituals. When Pumpkin suspects that her new friends are secretly witches, Apple doesn’t exactly deny the claim and suggests that they are merely doing the harmless things a woman may have done in Salem before she was targeted by men. Performing occult activities is just one half of their rebellion, however, as Apple also runs an eccentric cult built around the idea of sisterhood, and a complete rejection of men.
Desperate to become a part of this clique, Pumpkin submits to a long and challenging list of rules, which includes only talking to men via emojis. Though she keeps it up and becomes a core friend over the course of two seasons, things soon take a sharp turn when she learns about Pickle. Before her, Pickle was the fourth friend of the group, but after Apple found her having sex with a man, she cursed her as part of a banishment ritual. Not long after, Pickle got hospitalized with symptoms of poisoning, and since then, she has been lurking around the mall like a ghastly figure.
In reality, though, Pickle is here to warn Pumpkin of trouble, and this prompts her to look deeper into who exactly her friends are. Before long, she discovers that both Cherry and Fig are breaking the rules in their spare time and are only in the cult because they fear Apple. Things start to make even more sense when Pumpkin learns that Apple poisoned her own father. However, Apple soon senses friction and calls for a ritual to find and curse the traitor. Things go out of hand when a storm warning is issued, and in the chaos, Cherry gets crushed by a malfunctioning escalator. Not long after, a glass shard propelled by the wind slashes Fig’s head into two, leaving only Apple and Pumpkin to settle the score.
Forbidden Fruits Ending: Is Pumpkin Dead? Were She and Apple Sisters?
‘Forbidden Fruits’ ends with Apple choking Pumpkin to death, not long after it is revealed that they are half-siblings. After the hurricane ravages through the mall, Cherry and Fig end up dying under extraordinary circumstances, and only Pumpkin remains standing. Surprisingly, Apple shows no killing intent and instead asks Pumpkin to join her at the mall fountain, where they can wash away the blood and presumably escape. However, Pumpkin’s subtly planting the camera-enabled doll at a corner foreshadows exactly what is about to transpire. The framing of this scene also evokes Christian imagery, as the fountain’s water mixing with blood is possibly a nod to Christ’s sacrifice, albeit from the warped perspective of Apple, someone who has a god complex.
After awkwardly playing along with Apple so far, Pumpkin decides to use this opportunity for the heart-to-heart she has been yearning for all along. To that end, she reveals that she is actually Apple’s half-sister and came here after tracking her down. This all started after her father was poisoned to death, and Pumpkin, eager for revenge, began looking for the killer. Though she ultimately discovers her father’s affair and second family in the process, it’s only after learning about Apple’s pseudo witchcraft that she connects the dots. However, this time, it’s not rage that necessarily takes over her mind, but a desire to genuinely have a conversation with her sibling, and learn what might have gone wrong.
As it turns out, while Pumpkin had a great relationship with her father, the same is not how Apple recalls her past. On the contrary, she was furious that Pumpkin considered their father anything but a monster, which speaks to how deeply she exerts her trauma into the wider world. We get yet another glimpse into her twisted mind when she recalls attacking her mother for not sympathizing with her cause, and something similar happens in Pumpkin’s case. This entire time, Apple has been engineering a found family she can feel the joys of sisterhood with, and now that she actually has a sister, things ideally should be perfect. The reality, however, is far crueler, as Apple admits to feeling the most threatened by the people she cares about the most. In the end, Pumpkin becomes that cherished figure, which is why she is choked to death and left floating in the pool, just as everything shuts down due to the storm.
Will Apple Get Caught? Will She Join the Flower Cult?
Though Apple escapes the mall just in time, by the next morning, she is simply too bloodied to avoid suspicion. However, given that she knows that the doll is rigged, but still chooses to let it record everything, it shows there might be an element of guilt pushing her to get arrested. As such, the final sequence forces her to wrestle with the dilemma of making the proverbial correct choice or prioritizing herself. As she ponders all of this, her eyes meet those of another woman and her group, who seem eerily similar to the Fruit cult. Sure enough, this friend group also wears a matching set of bracelets, except this time they are themed after flowers. Realizing that this may be another cult, Apple shows up in front of the mysterious woman, who, similarly intrigued, allows her to come in for a job interview.
While it appears on the surface that Apple has simply jumped from one ship to another, in reality, it’s more like she’s scheming to take control of this new chapter of her life. We see this implied in the last scene of the movie, where a poster announces that Free Eden is opening in this new mall soon. This effectively serves as a reference for Apple’s arrival into, and complete takeover of, this entire new lifestyle, whether it is by choice or because she obsesses over gaining control. Regardless, given her potential desire to get caught and be held accountable for her actions, this might be her way of calling attention to herself. Another thing this revelation achieves is to flip the script on who Apple and her friends are. In reality, practicing cult-like sisterhood rituals is not as extraordinary as Pumpkin thought at first, and there are many things that even Apple has yet to see for herself.
Who is Sharon? Will She Find the Hidden Camera?
In the movie’s post-credits scene, we get to see Sharon at last, only to realize that she is not just the mysterious manager of Free Eden but an undercover FBI agent. Though we never get to see what Sharon looks like throughout the movie, this development explains why. As a figure driven by cold logic and a desire for justice, she is in many ways antithetical to Apple and the kind of space she wants to cultivate. Fittingly, the post-credits sequence suggests that this rivalry is destined to continue, as Sharon’s job as a covert officer has been to shadow Apple this entire time. As it turns out, the FBI has been suspicious of Apple ever since she poisoned her father, and what happened to Pickle only confirmed their suspicions.
The only reason Sharon doesn’t make it to the mall in time is presumably because of the storm, and that’s how three more people end up dead under mysterious circumstances. What’s worse is that Sharon has now lost Apple, and it might be quite some time before she gets her hands on her sought-after killer once again. Notably, when Sharon comes across Pumpkin’s body, she blurts out two important details in one sentence, by exclaiming disbelief at Apple murdering her own sister. This establishes that, not only did Sharon know the family history between Pumpkin and Apple, but she also has a very limited understanding of what Apple is capable of.
Sharon’s foreknowledge of Pumpkin’s true parentage brings up the theory that Pumpkin was herself a covert agent working for the FBI. This can explain her sudden appearance in Apple’s life or her consistent phone calls with her “mother,” which might as well be a cover-up for Sharon. However, all of that is perfectly explicable as Pumpkin’s genuine curiosity about her half-sister. Instead, it’s possible that Sharon lets all of this play out in the hopes of gathering evidence, which is why she takes Pumpkin’s passing so personally. However, there is still light at the end of the tunnel, as Sharon miraculously discovers the doll, as well as the camera inside of it. Though the scene ends on an ambiguous note, it’s just a matter of time before Sharon watches the recording and has something solid to pin against Apple, her arch nemesis.
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