New Cherry Flavor review: the sickest thing on Netflix this year

In almost all eight episodes of the Netflix limited series. New cherry flavor, the protagonist vomits a live kitten. That is not an understatement. Each time, she bends over, convulsing in pain, and gasps until a slimy mass comes out of her mouth and splashes onto the floor. Upon closer inspection, it is always a writhing newborn kitten with wet white fur. Then a zombie surreptitiously picks up the kitten and takes it to a witch, who drinks its blood. It’s important to know all of this in advance when diving into the show, because this isn’t the wildest thing. New cherry flavor has in store. Things get wilder. And considerably ruder.

That is not necessarily obvious from the start. New cherry flavor starts off clearly in comparison: film director Lisa N. Nova (Alita: Battle Angel star Rosa Salazar) arrives in Hollywood in the early 90s with a shocking short film under her belt, determined to expand it and turn it into a feature film. Much of the first episode is devoted to the work involved in getting noticed in Hollywood: parties and gatherings and conversations over drinks, all suspicious and drenched in an ominous light, because exploitation is in the air. Then Nova meets producer and director Lou Burke (Eric Lange), who agrees to help her realize her vision. But he betrays her, so he asks a witch (Catherine Keener) to curse him, which ends up costing more than Nova expected.

The first and easiest mistake when evaluating this hidden horror-noir from Channel zero creator Nick Antosca and Lenore Zion would reduce it to their overly apparent influences. Frankly stated, New cherry flavor It looks like a shameless scam from Davids Lynch and Cronenberg. The former is evident in the lens the series takes to Los Angeles, obsessed with hunches, winding roads, and mindless dreamlike images. The last comparison occurs when New cherry flavor delves into its hidden elements, all of which come with a healthy amount of body horror.

New cherry flavor – the slightly off-putting title comes from Todd Grimson’s novel of the same name, but is never really explained – not terribly clever in the words of two of cinema’s most beloved weirdo authors. Most of your images remind better projects like Mulholland Drive or existenceBut Antosca and Zion’s commitment to telling a deeply unsettling hidden story is, for lack of a better word, riveting.

Despite the seemingly endless possibilities that the streaming age brought, I have a hard time thinking about the last thing I saw was this fucking stupid. Stews of raw rodent entrails are consumed, repulsive substances are extracted and injected, and there is a sex scene that I prefer not to talk about. This does Cherry flavor feeling disoriented and oppressive in a way that reflects Lisa Nova’s descent into the hidden underworld of Los Angeles, where horrible things are done in exchange for power and influence.

But New cherry flavor it persists beyond that initial shock of repulsion. It’s a story about power and exploitation, a dark revenge thriller about a woman who wants to punish the powerful man who pulled her out of her own dream. The series uses its hidden twist to convincingly complicate its story. Their portrayal of art and witchcraft is not that different – the show’s characters view both as selfish acts that always come at a high cost, one that the perpetrators might not be willing to pay for.

The vomited kittens are a metaphor, of course. Boro, the witch, tells Lisa that there is something special within her, and that the price of the curse that Lisa seeks will be a regular taste of that essence. Lisa does nothing after arriving in Los Angeles, but the story never lets the audience forget that she is a artist, and that his art cost something. Across eight episodes, the writers of New cherry flavor They argue that both are dangerous things: people must be careful when they are about to commit an act of witchcraft or art, because they never know what they may find coming out of their mouths later on.

New cherry flavor launches on Netflix on Friday, August 13.