[REVIEW] FRESH

In Fresh (2022), Noa (Daisy Edgar-Jones) is discouraged by the dating scene, but her luck changes when she meets and exchanges numbers with the charming Steve (Sebastian Stan) during a meet-cute produce aisle grocery store encounter. Noa and Steve are hitting it off, and, despite knowing him for only a few days, Noa agrees to go on a trip with Steve to his private luxury home against the advice of her friend, Mollie (Jonica T. Gibbs) – who also happens to be the only person to whom Noa mentions the trip. Noa soon finds herself trapped in Steve’s grasp. What follows is a nail-biting thriller of blood and body horror as Steve’s character transforms into a combination of Ted Bundy and Hannibal Lecter and Noa fights to outwit him in a fight for her life, her body, and her sanity.

While the film, and the trailer in particular, purports to be a horror take on modern dating, it actually has very little to do with dating. Noa goes on a hilariously awkward date in the first scene and later browses cringe-worthy profiles on her dating app. However, seeing the rest of the story as the horrific consequences of modern dating is a loose tie-in, at best, that doesn’t connect well to the rest of the film.

That said as my only critique, I enjoyed this film. As a horror fan, it is difficult to find a horror flick that truly frightens me, and Fresh did just that. What works best for this film is that fear lurks just around the corner. During her captivity, Noa talks through the walls to Penny (Andrea Bang) another prisoner who has been there longer and kept alive by Steve, despite having body parts removed that Steve sells to his clients. Not seeing Penny until the end lends itself to greater terror as the viewers are asked to fill in the gaps of what they are hearing with their own imagination. There are many such examples, and it makes this film nauseatingly disturbing, yet somehow containing much less actual gore than I expected.

The aesthetics of the movie are also mentionable. Horror films set in houses are intriguing to me as I think the house element lends itself to a particularly nightmarish quality. Steve’s house is beautiful, yet soullessly perfect with demented notes – like himself. There are lots of long hallways and one steep stairway, shown several times, at moments of suspense as the protagonists struggle to escape. Many moments in film focus on food preparation and people eating together, another element of the film that is high in both aesthetic quality and suspense.

Fair warning: this film is not for the faint-hearted and actually left me not wanting to eat for the rest of the day. It’s doubtful that I would watch it a second time. However, it is a much higher quality horror film than what I’ve found in a while, and I highly recommend it to connoisseurs of fear and horror.

9

Premise

6.0/10

Music

9.0/10

Filming

10.0/10

Horror

10.0/10

Acting

10.0/10

Credits

• Director: Mimi Cave
• Starring: Sebastian Stan, Daisy Edgar-Jones, Jonica T. Gibbs, Andrea Bang
• Production Companies: Legendary Pictures, Hyperobject Industries
• Distributor: Searchlight Pictures