Television series

Brand New Cherry Flavor

Name: Brand New Cherry Flavor
Genre: Drama, Horror, Mystery
Released: 2021
Cast: Rosa Salazar, Catherine Keener, Eric Lange, Jeff Ward

Fantasy
Strange

A dizzyingly stylish revenge-occult thriller set in early-'90s Hollywood, following a filmmaker's descent into a hallucinatory underworld of magic and malice. Rosa Salazar commands the center as it spirals through surrealism, dark humour, and genuine body horror. Visually intoxicating and narratively slippery—for viewers who want their stories weird, their revenge messy, and their atmosphere thick enough to choke on.

TVMaze rating

3.2

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you like horror that runs on lurid, almost giddy excess and sharp satire of Hollywood's appetites, and don't mind a plot that refuses to explain itself.

Skip it if you want a story that holds still; it lurches between registers constantly, and some of its shock is deliberately crude, so the gore and grossness may wear thin.

What it asks of you: Eight episodes of about forty-three minutes each, a short run, but it asks for close attention, since its tone and logic keep shifting and rarely stop to explain themselves.

Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.

If you liked this

Killing Eve2018

A cat-and-mouse thriller between a brilliant psychopath and the obsessed MI6 agent hunting her, with the same dark humour, kinetic visual style, and queasy moral complexity that makes Brand New Cherry Flavor sing.

But The central relationship can overshadow plot momentum, and the final season divides fans on whether it sticks its ending.

The OA2016

Surreal, ambitious, and utterly unafraid to be strange—a show about interdimensional travel and impossible physics that prioritises atmosphere and weird beauty over literal coherence, exactly like Cherry Flavor.

But It was cancelled on a cliffhanger. If unresolved mysteries make you furious, this will haunt you for years.

Midnight Mass2021

Mike Flanagan's locked-room horror about faith and small-town dread, built on the same slow-burn dread and visual poetry. Supernatural threat wrapped in character study—unsettling and deeply human at once.

But It's slow. Glacially slow. Seven episodes, and nothing explosive happens until the final two.

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Brand New Cherry Flavor

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Raw2017

Both use surreal body horror and female physicality as weapons; both are interested in hunger—for revenge, for desire, for transformation—as the engine of narrative.

A French-Belgian film about a vegetarian girl who develops a taste for flesh at veterinary school—a body-horror coming-of-age story that uses cannibalism as metaphor for female desire and hunger. Gorgeous, grotesque, and morally complex.

But It's visceral and deeply uncomfortable; there are scenes of real animal matter that some viewers find genuinely unwatchable.

Mulholland Drive2001

David Lynch's noir-tinged Hollywood nightmare starring Naomi Watts; a film about desire, reinvention, and the city's cruel machinery. The closest thing to Brand New Cherry Flavor's hallucinatory logic and femme-centric revenge.

But It's a puzzle box designed to resist solution. Some viewers find that liberating; others find it infuriating.

Yellowjackets2021

A mystery-horror ensemble that braids past and present, trauma and gothic atmosphere, with the same commitment to visual strangeness and female characters who are messy, damaged, and absolutely riveting.

But The second season lost momentum for some viewers; pacing became an issue as the mythology expanded.

Hereditary2018

Ari Aster's folk-horror masterpiece about family, occult dread, and a woman losing her grip on reality. Viscerally disturbing and anchored by Toni Collette's gutting performance—similar intensity of surreal supernatural terror.

But It's genuinely distressing. Not fun-scary; this is grief and body horror at full force.

The Witch2016

Robert Eggers' debut: a slow-burn colonial folk-horror film about paranoia, hysteria, and actual witchcraft. Visually hypnotic, morally slippery, and fundamentally weird in a way that rewards patient viewers.

But Dialogue is period-accurate to the point of difficulty; some find it impenetrable, others pretentious.

Chilling Adventures of Sabrina2018

Tonally, it's dark-magic noir rather than teen comedy—a show about witchcraft, Faustian bargains, and a woman navigating supernatural politics. Same Gothic atmosphere and occult scheming.

But It leans gothic-soap at times; some plots spiral into melodrama rather than terror.

A Dark Song2016

An intimate, strange film about grief and occult ritual: a woman hires an exorcist for a séance that becomes something far stranger. Quiet, meditative, visually stunning—supernatural without jumping scares.

But Glacially paced; the entire film is two people in a cottage. If you need external plot momentum, you'll be bored.

The Wailing2016

Both are mysteries that distrust resolution; both use occult threat and hallucination to explore moral ambiguity, leaving you uncertain what you actually witnessed.

A South Korean mystery-horror epic about a village plagued by a mysterious illness, faith, paranoia, and the question of whether evil is external or internal. Narratively labyrinthine, visually dazzling, morally irresolvable.

But It's three hours and deliberately refuses to answer its central questions; viewers seeking clarity will feel cheated.

Destroyer2018

Both are LA-set revenge stories told through fractured reality; both ask whether destroying your enemy is indistinguishable from destroying yourself.

Karyn Kusama's undercover-cop thriller starring Nicole Kidman as a wrecked detective hunting her past in Los Angeles. Formally adventurous—fractured chronology, dreamlike editing—and as interested in style as narrative momentum.

But It's deliberately fragmented and austere; the non-linear structure alienates viewers looking for conventional thriller beats.