The Brand New Cherry Flavor Scene Fans Couldn't Stomach
Since the earliest days of YouTube, blind reaction challenges or the practice of recording your unfiltered response to a video you've never seen before, have been some of the most popular forms of interactive meme-ing. Reaction videos cover wide spectrum of subjects, including real-life violence, generational exposure to pop culture, graphic fetish pornography, or even wholesome videos of dogs reuniting with their owners after serving in the military. With the ever-increasing popularity of TikTok, blind reaction videos have become some of the most popular content on the app, and one of the fastest ways to rack up views..
The most recent reaction trend has centered not on the latest viral video, but the original Netflix limited series, "Brand New Cherry Flavor." Created by Nick Antosca ("Channel Zero," "The Act") and Lenore Zion ("Channel Zero," "Billions") and based on the novel of the same name by Todd Grimson, "Brand New Cherry Flavor" is a twisted descent into kitten-filled madness set in 1990s Los Angeles. The explicit nature of the show is ripe for shock value, and now TikTok creators all over the globe are tuning in and freaking out over one particular scene nearly seven months after the show debuted.
The plot of Brand New Cherry Flavor
The series focuses on Brazilian film director Lisa Nova (Rosa Salazar) who moves to Los Angeles to pursue her filmmaking dreams and direct her first major feature film. When Nova meets producer-director Lou Burke (Eric Lange), she finally thinks she's found her ticket to Hollywood stardom. Unfortunately, Burke is a shining example of the sleazy, unethical powers that be in 1990s Hollywood and betrays Nova by stealing her film from underneath her. Not willing to play nice, Lisa seeks out the assistance of a witch named Boro/Jennifer Nathans (Catherine Keener) to curse Lou in retaliation.
As to be expected, Boro's curse comes at a price, paid in the form of Lisa vomiting up newborn kittens. If that wasn't weird enough, all of the barf-cats are later collected by a zombie who delivers them back to Boro. Around halfway through the series, Lisa tells Boro that she's sick of vomiting up baby cats, so Boro gives Lisa another option — he gives her a vagina-like opening on the side of her abdomen where she can "birth" the cats. The show's description is wild on its own, but it's the scene that follows Lisa's discovery of her new opening that has TikTokkers losing their collective minds, and claiming to be "scarred for life."
Popping a brand new cherry
Lisa is at first understandably concerned by the new opening on her body, but when her lover Roy (Jeff Ward), finds her on the floor of her bathroom with a newborn kitten on the floor, she has a lot of explaining to do. The zombie shows up to take the kitten back to Boro, and Lisa tells him "You can tell her I'll go back to puking them." Roy, surprisingly, is nowhere near as freaked out about Lisa's condition as he probably should be, especially when the two begin to hook up. Lisa shows her new opening to him, placing his hand on it, and Roy begins to caress the opening before ... digitally penetrating her.
Lisa and Roy both show visible signs of pleasure upon his touch of the passageway from which moments before she just birthed a cat, and Lisa continues guiding his hands deeper into the new opening. Eventually, as their passion ignites, Roy eventually shoves his entire fist into the opening, eliciting wails of ecstasy from Lisa. Roy's stimulating of Lisa's kitten birth canal opening serves as an act of foreplay, and the two are overcome with such electric desire that they have passionate sex on a motel bed.
Long live the new flesh
Within the context of the show, the evocative scene fits into the surreal world Antosca and Zion have created, as strange as it may be. However, TikTok reaction videos are showcasing people watching the scene with zero understanding of the wild world of "Brand New Cherry Flavor." Whether or not the scene has inspired viewers to actually watch the series as a whole is yet to be seen, but "Brand New Cherry Flavor" has been trending on Netflix for the last week. The scene has been described as "horrifying," "disturbing," "disgusting," and "uncomfortable," with many concerned for the mental well-being of everyone involved with the show.
The series takes inspiration from a variety of horror subgenres, but this scene in particular feels inspired by David Cronenberg's body-horror sci-fi horror classic, "Videodrome." Roy shoving his entire fist into Lisa's newly minted abdominal "honey pot," is one thing, but watching Max Renn (James Woods) absorb a VHS tape through a similar abdominal opening and later pull a gun out of it will probably break these reaction creators' brains. Body horror was once a staple of horror cinema, but if the reactions to "Brand New Cherry Flavor" have taught us anything, it's that the newer generation hasn't had nearly enough exposure to the subgenre, and now is the perfect time for a resurgence of body horror.