The debut feature from director Mimi Cave, fleshed-out visual jigsaw Fresh sews together the pitfalls of modern dating and the golden age of serial killers.
★★★★✰
After sampling the bodily thrills of Julia Ducournau’s Titane, cinema is riding high on its kick for body horror. Though it builds on foundations of the human body as a commodity, Fresh takes the horror baton in a vibrant, jaunty direction. Displaying parallels to genre predecessors like Get Out, Cave’s film pulls no narrative punches on its climb to rival the success of horror films gone by.
Noa (played by Daisy Edgar-Jones) is sick of relying on dating apps to find fulfilment—that is until she meets stranger Steve (Sebastian Stan) on a late night supermarket trip. The pair instantly hit it off, though Noa’s best friend Mollie (Jonica T. Gibbs) immediately has her suspicions. When the couple decide to go away for a weekend, Noa is subject to the reality of who Steve really is.
Charisma and charm ooze out of Fresh’s every pore. Contrasting with the kind of hellish first date encounter that many women have in their anecdotal arsenal, Edgar-Jones and Stan’s chemistry is electric. There are points where the two blend into one persona, their personal aims indistinguishable through the lens of casual psychopathy. Fresh off the boat from fellow Disney+ release Pam & Tommy, Sebastian Stan rules his confined kingdom with a seductive fist. The film’s standout performance, his take on grandiose human farming is a domineering marvel.
Alongside the obvious ramifications of harming another, the narrative is stacked with social commentary. There’s an overriding sense of emasculated rejection throughout, turning into twisted reinterpretations of taking courting back to its old fashioned roots. Red flags are obviously planted, making the palpable audience frustration an ideal match for the stalling human horror. Inside a luxury 70s shag pad prison, love and surrender tentatively form under a kitchen that viscerally minces and slices. Empathy is an affliction for both Noa and Steve, while their fates are indicative of warped, millennial circumstances.
If anything, the downfalls of Fresh remain in the fact that parallels to previous films are sometimes too closely drawn. The tropes of the nosey best friend (exceptionally performed by Jonica T. Gibbs), the man who leaves in spite of it all and the suspiciously planned getaway are details bearing so much resemblance to Get Out, its structure almost feels formulaic. While the ending is just and rightly valid, its nature falls short of satisfying, the tension built in its opening minutes somewhat lost. Even while these small gripes are present, the overall attention to detail and realistic foundations seduce a heap of moral wrongs into a watch that only feels right.
If anyone was to question if they truly felt okay being single in a chaotic world, Fresh could look to change their mind. While direct in depiction of trusting a total stranger, the overarching romanticism almost mitigates any questionable wrongdoing. Even when being screamed into submission, sometimes a connection that truly understands us is all life needs to offer.
The Verdict
Fresh blends classic and contemporary issues into a modern milkshake that screams with horrific tension. While not overly gory, it doesn’t need to be—its psychological seduction is in a league of its own. With details crafted from the reverberating sound design to the visual landscape for seeing men as they truly are, Fresh does what it says on the tin to create a new cinematic precedent for skin-crawling power.
Words by Jasmine Valentine
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