Fresh is ONE OF THE BEST CANNIBAL THRILLER MOVIES I HAVE SEEN

The title speaks for itself. I was told by one of my classmates, Sophie, to watch the latest Hulu Original, Fresh. I am rarely on Hulu and I will be honest. The trailer that was advertised to me for this film was not that good in presenting what the film was about. It was just the art theme of the film. It showed little clips of Noa, the main character having a date from hell with Steve, the protagonist. I thought the film was going to be about Noa getting kidnapped by Steve and she has to escape. We have all experienced these types of films before. I did not know that the film was going to take a turn to Black Market cannibalism cuisine. I was shocked that the film was about Modern day cannibalism and upsettingly was shown so beautifully with the camerawork and aesthetic of the film. I haven’t watched anything cannibal-related in a while. The last known cannibal-related media I have watched was Tokyo Ghoul and that’s an anime. Cannibal films I know are Texas Chainsaw Massacre, more on the original side, and The Green Inferno, which was uncomfortable and unbearingly to watch, I couldn’t finish it because of the gore. 

!SPOILERS ARE AHEAD! 

So at the beginning of the film, we see Noa going on a ‘tinder’ date with a horrible man. I liked this idea because this is a modern problem lots of people go through today. I even have stories of online dates I have gone on being a disaster. Noa then meets a good man, Steve, at the grocery store. They have a date, have sex, and proceed to go out. Steve then proceeds to ask Noa to go on a trip with him to a cabin. He says their cabin isn’t ready and tells her that they are going to stay at his ridiculously cool house. Steve then drugs Noa with the alcohol he gives her. Then after Noa wakes up from the drugs, she is chained up in a room and Steve is in there and tells her that he sells the meat off of women he kidnaps to the Black Market or better yet his high-profile clients. Steve has other victims that he cuts up and sells meat to. 

Now that the sypnosis is out of the way, let’s talk about how crazy this film is. When Noa decides to try to escape and does not succeed, you would think that he would just scold her or hit her. Steve decided to “take her ass”, he actually said that in the film. He proceeds to surgically cut off her ass and sell it to his clinets. My brain when this part happened in the film was mind blown because he really did take her ass. My brain just couldnt wrap around that he really took her ass off her body. Then the rest of the film, I was just thinking as I looked at Noa was “you have no ass Noa”. 

The next part of the film that blew my mind was Steve’s wife. Steve does have a wife and it was commented by Noa’s best friend, Mollie, that since Steve didn’t have social media so the instanseous thought was that he might have a wife and kids, which he does. I think this thought process of finding out your boyfriend doesn’t have social media is a common thing when talking with your friends about your relationships, which I found funny and relatable. So Mollie decides to find her friend and confront the wife at her house because Noa has been missing for awhile. The wife doesn’t know anything but when Steve comes home he acts as if he doesn’t know Noa or that his name is Steve. But Mollie was so smart to call Noa’s phone and Steve had it on him. I thought the wife would have not be in on his job but the wife knocked out Mollie and I screamed at my tv “SHE’S IN ON IT.” The dynamic of Steve and his wife’s relationship seem strained. I could see that obviously Noa and Steve had a deeper connection between each other. It could have been the same in the past between Steve and his wife because it was also discovered that his wife used to be one of his victims. She was taking a shower and she had a prosthetic leg. I gasped when I saw this because she was a living and walking victim of Steve. Why was she still with him knowing what he did to her? It was also discovered that if you were a victim of Steve and he liked you then you had the upper hand. The two are obviously married and she had the upper hand on Steve. Why didn’t she escape? Why did she marry the guy? Why did she have kids with the guy? Why was she sticking up for him in the end? All I have to say is that she has a severe case of Stockholm Syndrome, worse than Belle from Beauty and the Beast. 

Overall, the film was amazing and beautiful for a central theme of cannibalism. The music fit and the random dance montages just made sense. The film made you think you were with Noa the whole time. I felt like I was kidnapped and thinking of how to escape from Steve based on the camerawork. Also, the shots of the food Steve cooked from the girls. I can’t even lie some of the food looked good, I AM NOT A CANNIBAL I SWEAR. I think a lot of people should check out this film, it’ll leave you shocked I know for sure.