Fresh

THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS. Please watch the movie and come back to this review if you are at all interested in seeing it.

Fresh film is about a woman, Noah, having a miserable time on the dating scene, when she meets charming surgeon Steve who–by all appearances–is a dream catch: funny, attractive and bright. But since this is horror, it turns out that this is all a facade, because he is–in fact–a cannibal, who slowly and tortuously cuts women into pieces so he can sell them to other cannibals. In his world women are literally pieces of meat, and the “fresher” the meat, the better.

There’s lots to like about Fresh. The cinematography is great, the acting top-notch, and the sets are wonderful (hip “bachelor pad” claustrophobic and creepy). But my favorite aspect is that fact that while it’s explicit in its critique of the patriarchy, it’s rarely ham-handed. Instead, it’s brutal–and funny!

Steve’s wife represents upholders of the current power structures–being his former victim and his current collaborator. It’s shocking–one of the film’s most disturbing reveals. As she enters the shower, the camera pans down to show that she’s missing the lower half of her right leg.

My least favorite aspect of the film was that we barely got to see the “1% of the 1%,” who shell out obscene amounts of money do something obscene. That idea–of the uber-wealthy paying to dine on human flesh is extraordinarily upsetting to me. It also felt like an appropriate nod to “Hostel,” which suddenly feels, uh, fresh to me now.

I completely understand why the focus needed to be on Steve and Noah. But I would have loved to have spent a bit more time with the buyers, the literal funders of the patriarchy; and critiques of the super-wealthy are always welcome.

For me, Fresh will end up being in a pantheon with other recent psychological horror offerings that successfully critique everything from religion to race in the most claustrophobic, “creeping dread” way: Get Out, Us, St. Maud, and Midsommar. I highly recommend it.