Fresh
After tiring of online dating, Noa decides to take a chance and go on a date with a charming guy she runs into at her local groccery store. They hit it off and she joins him for a getaway to his cabin- only to be drugged and locked away. Noa realizes that she may have bit off more than she could chew when it came to the dating scene.
Fresh made it on my radar fairly early before its release. I had heard Sebastian Stan was going to be in a horror movie. He had just finished working on his role as Tommy Lee in Pam & Tommy, and was still pretty popular from his Marvel involvement. And with a name like “Fresh,” I assumed there was going to be some sort of eating involved.
And I was not wrong.
The premise of the movie is a woman named Noa (Daisy Edgar-Jones) is sick of online dating, as the dating scene seems to be bloated with trash. After having a refreshing interaction with a man named Steve (Stan), she begins dating him. After being invited by Steve for a weekend away, she arrives at a secluded cabin and is drugged and imprisoned by him. She begs Steve to tell her what is going on and learns that she is going to be sold for meat piece-meal to wealthy cannibals. And the news does not sit well with her.
The movie was surprisingly (forgive me) fresh! Though I had an idea of where the film might be going based off the title, it was not as predictable as I had imagined! The cinematography was great, especially with the scenes involving food. A ton of color that just seemed to pop on screen. Stan did a great job as a deranged and delusional psychopath who was somewhat likable. But the star of the show was definitely Edgar-Jones, who made an excellent warrior who got her vengeance.
What the movie was lacking in was more information on the people behind all of the business. Though there is a mid credit scene that gives more information on why the cannibalism is occurring, I wish there would have been more. And having some more background on Stan’s Steve character also would have been great. But perhaps they are saving that for another movie.
Rating: I give the movie 9 cannibals out of 10. It’s a great movie visually, the story is well done and the cast does amazing- but it is the ending that I loved.
If you are looking for movies that are similar, you can start with the most well-known cannibal in movie history- my friend Hannibal Lector. With 5 movies and 2 tv shows related to the character, I would suggest checking out Silence of the Lambs as a starting point. But the tv show Hannibal is a work of art and is something I cannot rave enough about. You can also check out Kiss the Girls, a 90’s thriller about a woman who tries to help detectives catch the infamous serial killer known as ‘Casanova.’
As far as books are concerned, Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Gothic is a great start. A young woman in 1950’s Mexico gets involved in her cousin’s marriage- and her pleas for help before her husband marries her. Of course, you can also dive into the Hannibal Lector novels, such as Red Dragon. Great reads, and also (in my opinion) always more detailed than a movie could be.
What did you think of Fresh? Did you find Sebastian Stand and Daisy Edgar-Jones’s movie as delicious as I did? Let me know!
Until next time…
-M