Scare Value Award Winner – Best Final Girl
Top 10 film of 2022
Fresh review.
Fresh presents itself as a 30-minute romantic comedy followed by a 70-minute horror movie. I would argue it’s actually a 40-minute romantic comedy followed by a 40-minute horror movie followed by 30 minutes of something else entirely. Allow me to explain.
Classic movie reviews will contain spoilers.
Fresh
Directed by Mimi Cave
Written by Lauryn Kahn
Starring Daisy Edgar-Jones, Sebastian Stan and Jonica T. Gibbs
Fresh Review
Fresh debuted on Hulu back in March so we’re going to talk spoilers here. You kind of have to do it or we’re just going to be discussing a half an hour rom com. What happens after the half hour mark is what got Fresh some attention. What happens in the final act is what should get it some acclaim.
The opening titles in Fresh don’t start until over 30 minutes into the movie. There is good reason for it. That’s when the real movie begins. The first 30 minutes are spent watching a decent romantic comedy. Noa (Daisy Edgar-Jones) has no luck in the dating game. When she meets Steve (Sebastian Stan) in the produce section of the grocery store she thinks she’s finally found love. Steve is good-looking, successful, funny and charming. Noa’s best friend Mollie (Jonica T. Gibbs) thinks this man sounds too good to be true.
That’s the plot of a rom com alright. It’s also a setup for a horror movie. That horror movie begins after the late set opening titles. Steve drugs Noa on their romantic weekend getaway. She awakens chained to a wall. Steve, whose real name is Brendan, sells human flesh on the black market and plans to systematically remove pieces from Noa.
So yeah…Fresh is a horror movie. Noa isn’t the only woman in captivity. Judging from the amount of flesh inside of Steve’s walk-in freezer…this isn’t a new occupation. When Noa disappears, Mollie starts looking into what happened. She manages to track down Steve’s home but runs afoul of his wife…who, of course, is in on it. Mollie ends up in the same situation Noa is in.
It’s a fine turn towards horror. You are unlikely to come to it by accident. Movies are always labeled with their genre right near their title. It’s unfortunate in a way. You could earnestly make it a half hour into Fresh thinking you were watching something that it isn’t. It’s a credit to Stan that he pulls off the awkwardly charming man of Noa’s dreams so well in a movie we know has an inevitable sinister turn on the horizon.
What happens in the third act of Fresh is even better than the twist entering the second act. Noa turns the movie back into a romantic comedy. She takes the role of the disarming, charming woman of Steve’s dreams that Steve played to court her in the first act. She shows interest in the things he enjoys. This includes letting him cook his specialty dishes for her. Yes…with that meat.
Noa completely wins him over to the point that he forgets to handcuff her for their candlelight dinners. She doesn’t try to run for it immediately. An earlier attempt to do that cost her pieces of flesh. Instead, Noa doubles down on the ruse. She asks Steve to dance with her…the way he did when he was tricking her. She woos him to bed the way that he had. And once she gets his pants off…she takes her bit of flesh back in trade.
It’s an ingenious reversal. It’s a true reversal. Noa escapes (and saves Mollie) because she plays the same set of tricks that had been played on her. It’s as satisfying a turn of the tables as you’ll find. Fresh commits so hard to its opening half hour mini movie that watching it play out in reverse is perverse fun. Watching Steve be tricked into seduction so unwittingly, as he had done to Noa, is a real treat.
Stan and Edgar-Jones are terrific. There are times near the end where Edgar-Jones makes you wonder. Despite Noa’s situation being so horrific…Edgar-Jones’s little laughs and the way she acts around Steve lead you to question if she could somehow still be falling for this monster. Stan plays both sides of the romantic movie with complete believability as well. Right up until he finds out what it feels like to have someone take a bite out of you.
Noa and Mollie make it out, killing Steve and his wife along the way. It’s the happy ending to the reverse rom com that Fresh became. An appropriate closure to a story that twisted back on itself. If the end game of Steve’s seduction was to entrap Noa…the end game of Noa’s seduction had to be freeing her. Fresh is smart enough to keep its twists where they belong and let the reversal play out perfectly.
Scare Value
Fresh was heralded upon release for its dark turn to start the second act. The turn it takes to start the third is even more interesting. Noa turning the tables back on Steve/Brendan by using all of the tricks he used to court her is a fascinating take on the dynamic. Fresh isn’t done being a romantic comedy when Noa is drugged and chained to a wall. It later becomes a completely different one to deliver a wildly satisfying conclusion.
4/5
Fresh Link
Fresh Trailer
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