I feel like I’ve been repeating some version of this statement for weeks now. But Netflix keeps repeatedly underscoring the truth of it. Basically, if you love horror content, the streamer has got you covered with a bevy of new releases. Content that it’s also continuing to add to at a steady clip, with new fare like Brand New Cherry Flavor.
If you want to check out some of the best content on Netflix right now for horror fans, you can always refer back to some of our recent coverage. Like this roundup we prepared of the best horror movies on Netflix at the moment. Brand New Cherry Flavor, meanwhile, is a new addition on the TV side of things. Specifically, it’s a limited series starring Rosa Salazar, Eric Lange, and Catherine Keener. And it’s based on a novel of the same name, from author Todd Grimson.
Netflix’s new limited series Brand New Cherry Flavor
From the official Netflix synopsis of this new show: “An aspiring film director in the sun-drenched but seamy world of 1990 Los Angeles embarks on a mind-altering journey of supernatural revenge.”
Which sounds … like a pretty straightforward-enough story, right? Let’s cut to the chase, though, and get to the disgusting part. Because this might qualify as one of the grossest things that Netflix has ever released. Depending on who you ask, of course.
Brand New Cherry Flavor actually looks like a surreal nightmare and the reviews are also positive. Gonna give it a watch after I'm done with 5th season of Saul. Besides, it's got Rosa Salazar of Alita fame, that's definitely a plus.https://t.co/tYxnFk5b2e
— Dark Saint (@DefiledGod) August 10, 2021
At one point in Brand New Cherry Flavor, the young filmmaker, played by Salazar, turns to a witch doctor for her help in putting a curse on a movie director. Some time after that, Salazar’s character — well, starts throwing up slimy kittens. Over and over again. Vomiting up a pile of filth which contains the aforementioned kittens.
She re-confronts the witch doctor. “No more throwing up kittens!” Fine, the witch doctor (played by Keener) acknowledges. I’ll help you out there, no more throwing up kittens. Without spoiling it for you, though, the “fix” that the witch doctor produces leaves Salazar’s character in a much, much worse state. How bad? Variety has the tease.
“Resigned, she sighs. ‘Tell her I’ll go back to puking,’ Lisa says to (the witch doctor’s) stupefied lackey (Mark Acheson), who can only grunt in response as he shuffles away.”
Yikes. It’s bad enough, in other words, that she wants to go back to vomiting up cats.
‘We want the show to feel like a nightmare’
In a Q&A with executive producers and showrunners Nick Antosca and Lenore Zion, which Netflix included with the Brand New Cherry Flavor press material, they lay out some of their thinking about the show’s aesthetic. A show, by the way, that currently has a 92% critics score on Rotten Tomatoes. “We want the show to feel like a nightmare,” the showrunners explain.
“From one angle, it’s a story about an artist trying to get what exists in her head out into the world and how insane, turbulent, sidetracked and corrupted that process can get. It’s about other things too. But the most important thing to us was trying to create a uniquely surreal experience and a memorable main character.”
Brand New Cherry Flavor is streaming now on Netflix.
