TRAILER TALK: Cherry Tree looks like an amazing witch movie in the trailer, but the film festival reviews are rather unenchanted…

Cherry Tree (Release Date, 1/8/2015; Video on Demand)

I just saw a trailer that had me stoked to this! Making reference to such components as magical resurrection, the sacrifice of an unborn child and a coven of witches, this Irish film has me excited and optimistic. The trailer’s shots and music seized my attention; dismal yet beautiful. Written (Brendan McCarthy) and directed (David Keating) by the minds behind Wake Wood (2010, also an Irish film), we catch glimpses of some sort of webbed Species-esque (1995) cocoon, strange rituals and spellcraft.

On the Blumhouse website I also found all sorts of awesome, somewhat spoiler-ish screen shots complete with rituals, cultists, creepy lairs and monsters (perhaps a demon?). All cool stuff, but I must admit that there is clearly a blatant overuse of giant centipedes in this film. How’s that for a strange criticism? But I’m not complaining…yet.

Unfortunately, despite my child-like excitement, Dread Central had a rather unfavorable criticism to offer:

“Compared to the well balanced, creeping horror of Wake Wood, this is amateur hour in the extreme. If there’s anything positive to be said about it, Cherry Tree does bust out some rather impressive physical effects work on occasion, and the lack of sexualisation of the coven is a nice touch. Battrick carries the film capably and manages not to embarrass herself completely amidst the torrential nonsense. But is that worth suffering the trip down this particular rabbit hole of absurdity? No. No, it isn’t.”

Does it really look so bad? Here’s the TRAILER, see for yourself:

There is some absolute weirdness going on towards the end of that trailer, including some infernal MirrorMask demon lady! Can’t wait to see this, but can’t help to be extremely worried by the available reviews–because yes, so far they’re all negative. All should be warned by the consistently less-than-rave reviews of the film.

Cine-Vue wrote “the issues and problems cripple what could have been a gnarly genre piece…The pace is sluggish even when narrative events hurtle along like a freight-train with the brakes off…The film is nothing but a clumsy constructed yarn with a final scene/shot so cheap and misguided; it sums up Keating’s clunker with aplomb.” Ouch!

Flickering Myth joined the dog pile and warned that “Getting a movie like Cherry Tree right is a very difficult task. Of course you want to take your movie seriously, but when you make a movie about witches and covens, you have to tread very carefully to remain on the right side of entertaining – otherwise you just end up looking a little bit silly. And in the case of Cherry Tree, the movie is just a little too silly…Being that this is a movie based around witches, ancient covens and the rebirth of the Anti-Christ, Cherry Tree is hammier than Porky Pig eating a bacon sarnie. The movie starts off innocently enough, but once the act of sex happens and the pregnancy begins, Cherry Tree devolves into an incredibly silly mess. Each passing moment is wackier than the next to the point where it’s laugh-out-loud funny. But the movie isn’t trying to be funny, it’s trying to be scary – which it fails at miserably.”

In case these reviews haven’t completely scared you away from considering watching this film, here’s the synopsis from IMDB:

Faith’s world is turned upside down after she finds out that her beloved father is dying. When the mysteriously alluring Sissy Young becomes her field hockey coach, Faith finds a compassionate spirit and much-needed mother figure. Little does she know that Sissy is the head of a centuries-old witches’ coven that uses the fruit of an ancient cherry tree in a secret ritual that restores life to the dead and dying. Offering to cure her father in exchange for a child, Sissy strikes a bargain with Faith, who suddenly finds herself pregnant with a baby that’s growing at an alarming rate. But with the clock to the child’s birth ticking down and the true intention of Sissy’s plans for humanity becoming more apparent, Faith and her father must stand together in order to save both their lives.

I am honestly someone who seeks the opinions of others before choosing my viewing options. That’s not to say that I won’t see films which yield poor reviews, but I might de-prioritize them on my watch list. That said, I remain to excited about this trailer and intend to ignore these reviews!!! I’ll admittedly lower my expectations. But make no mistake, I’m seeing this as soon as I can!