It was sundown in Austin, Texas when Sarah Millman realized she was onto something. The costume designer was looking at photos from the SXSW Film & TV Festival, where her film Forbidden Fruits<\/em><\/a>made its debut earlier this month. \u201cWe had a cosplayer show up,\u201d says Millman. The young woman had copied the actress Victoria Pedretti\u2019s signature look from the campy satire about witches who work in a mall\u2014white fringe cowboy boots, baby pink bloomers, a criminally tiny striped cardigan, and a pink Stanley cup with metallic pink stickers. \u201cShe copied [the look from] the trailer,\u201d said Millman. \u201cBut even before the movie came out, she was on it so fast.\u201d<\/p>\n A similar surprise happened last weekend in Manhattan, when a fan arrived at the Forbidden Fruits <\/em>opening night in a gingham Reformation dress worn by Lola Tung in the film. She topped it with the same glass heart choker<\/a> from Urban Outfitters. \u201cOn projects, producers will always say, \u2018We want this to be a Halloween costume,\u2019\u201d says Millman from her home in Toronto. \u201cThe truth is, you never know if that will actually happen. But I did <\/em>sense, from the beginning of [Forbidden Fruits<\/em>], that this was something different.\u201d<\/p>\n Alexandra Shipp, Lili Reinhart, and Victoria Pedretti in Forbidden Fruits<\/em>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n Forbidden Fruits <\/em>is a 103-minute flick that slashes and burns its way through a typical Texas mall. The \u201cfruits\u201d in the title are Apple (Lili Reinhart), Cherry (Pedretti), Fig (Alexandra Shipp), and Pumpkin (Tung), a quartet of witch-curious young women who work at a pointelle-cardigan hellscape called Free Eden. (Yes, it\u2019s a goof on Free People, where screenwriter Lily Houghton worked after college.) The denim-clad coven casts spells, confesses sins, chugs mocha lattes, enchants clueless customers and lovestruck food court employees, and maybe commits murder for funsies.<\/p>\n The film is a vicious \u201chey babe\u201d satire in the vein of The Craft<\/em>, Heathers<\/em>, Jennifer\u2019s Body<\/em>, and Mean Girls<\/em>. That means Millman had to know everything about those movies while staying conscious of moving beyond them\u2014and keeping the film\u2019s core starlets in the loop on their characters. \u201cIt was a little intimidating,\u201d Millman says. \u201cThese are wildly stylish young women, and there can be an assumption\u2014I\u2019m just going to say it\u2014that working in Canada means you don\u2019t have internet access, or something. But none of them came in with that energy at all. They were so open.\u201d<\/p>\n Lola Tung wears a dress from Reformation.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n Millman notes that when she began talking to Emma Chamberlain, who makes her movie debut as a clique cast-off named Pickle, \u201cshe actually sent me a small lookbook\u2014including a pair of ballet flats that looked like someone had worn them around the mall for exactly three and a half years.\u201d Chamberlain asked that every cotton<\/a>minidress<\/a> she wore in the film be hemmed \u201cso, so <\/em>short\u201d to reference \u201860s horror heroines like Shelley Duvall and Mia Farrow. For her part, Reinhart made a Pinterest board that essentially \u201cmanifested\u201d the character of Apple into being, loading it with Rebecca Mojica vampire chokers<\/a> and subversive graphic tees<\/a>. And Pedretti \u201cshowed up to set one day and was like, \u2018I brought this scrunchie,\u2019 and it was perfect,\u201d says Millman. \u201cVictoria has a really brilliant mind. So that was our nod to Heathers<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n No mall movie is complete without tons (and tons) of denim\u2014but that gets complicated on a horror set with buckets of fake blood, constant spell-casting with smoke and wax, and manicures so sharp they can poke holes in fabric. Enter American Eagle, the beloved teen mall brand that stocked Forbidden Fruits <\/em>with enough denim so that every outfit could have a style stunt double. That included Tung\u2019s teeny pleated skort<\/a>, Shipp\u2019s floaty boho blouse<\/a>, Reinhart\u2019s black denim capris<\/a> (worn with a witchy corset top, of course), and Pedretti\u2019s butt-hugging bootcut flares<\/a>. In one memorable scene, Tung chases Chamberlain inside an American Eagle store after spotting her Susan Alexandra charm bracelet<\/a> on the floor.<\/p>\n Behind the scenes of Forbidden Fruits<\/em>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n That scene was more silly than scary, but Millman says Forbidden Fruits\u2019 <\/em>horror elements were impossible to ignore during production. \u201cShooting this film in an abandoned mall overnight was creepy as hell,\u201d she shares. \u201cI found myself, like, running <\/em>to get back to wardrobe because I was like, \u2018This is too eerie.\u2019 Then one of the girls said it was a blood moon. That was the night we actually shot the first scene where they cast spells.\u201d<\/p>\n Millman worried they\u2019d invoked an actual hex when candle wax from an onscreen coven ritual dripped directly onto Reinhart\u2019s Rodarte dress. \u201cI was like, \u2018Oh no, we went too far, we actually cursed ourselves!\u2019\u201d The studio budget helped buy another Rodarte gown, marking the first\u2014and perhaps only\u2014time that movie magic surpassed actual magic and saved the day.<\/p>\n![\"pumpkin](\"https:\/\/hips.hearstapps.com\/hmg-prod\/images\/af24244d-8b7e-4703-aff5-92c206cab713.jpg?crop=1xw:1xh;center,top&resize=980:*\" "\\"pumpkin")
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