fresh movie review

With romance callously sliced up into right and left swipes, dating has long been an undignified concept in the online world. You could even call it a meat market—sure, it’s a clichéd phrase, but what cliché isn’t rooted in some truth?

In debuting director Mimi Cave ’s entertaining and bonkers satirical horror “ Fresh ,” Noa knows all about the losers on the bland menu of her endless app scrolls—it’s understandable that she has lost her taste for kissing the frogs. Still, our modern West Coaster—charismatically played by “Normal People” breakout Daisy Edgar-Jones —refuses to give up optimism and puts herself out there courageously, scarf-wearing douche-y dudes be damned! It’s through her sweet hopefulness that she passes on countless faux-cool profile photos during one such evening of mindless browsing, and reaches out to someone sporting a cute dog picture as his avatar. But what thanks does she get for her curiosity? Nothing, just a gross dick picture sent by your average creeper.

We get introduced to Noa in a pitch-perfect opening scene during a horrendous date with one of those aforesaid scarf-wearers. A cheapskate (“Bring cash,” he reminds Noa before the date even takes place), Chad chews his noodles while spewing all sorts of stomach-churning vitriol. “You would look great in a dress,” he rudely tells the sweater-donned Noa, putting her down for not being into femininity “like the women of his parents’ generation.” He insults their waitress with blatant racism. He feels entitled enough to grab all the leftovers, not hold the door for Noa (What happened to all that “parents’ generation” talk?) and calls her a stuck-up bitch when his reach for a kiss doesn’t get reciprocated. So can you really blame Noa for rapidly buying into the grand gestures of Sebastian Stan ’s traditional charmer Steve on the heels of this disastrous evening and falling to bed with him?

You can’t—hey, it’s the ever-appealing Stan we’re talking about—but you are allowed to raise a slight eyebrow when this practical woman completely trusts a perfect stranger she only just met at a supermarket aisle, by allowing him to whisk her away to a surprise weekend getaway to an unknown location. Thankfully, her droll, bisexual best-friend Mollie (a terrific Jojo T. Gibbs) who seems to have given up on men completely, has much sharper instincts. No social media footprint? Not even an Instagram page as someone who claims to be a plastic surgeon? To Mollie, these are all red flags.

They will seem shady enough to the viewers too, thanks to Lauryn Kahn ’s zippy script and Cave’s visual language that, in unison, suggest enough of an unease beneath Steve’s casual allure. To the careful ear, “I don’t eat animals” from his lips will ring one or two alarm bells. (Why not just say, “I’m a vegetarian?”) Other clues will hint shades of this mystery man’s unusual tastebuds, too. But it’s not until the title card “Fresh” appears more than 30 minutes into the film that they will be spelled out for all their grotesqueness. (Speaking of late-emerging title cards, if “ Drive My Car ” was a bridge too far for you in that department, wait until “Fresh” sneakily asserts, “Hold my Old Fashioned!”)

While the surprising twist from this point on is what’s sickly fun about “Fresh,” it’s near-impossible to talk about this movie without spoiling it to some degree. So read everything below at your own risk, knowing that your first-time experience with the film will be irreparably altered if you do so. Here it goes: Steve is in fact a cold-blooded liar as well as a cannibal, satisfying the needs of his ridiculously rich human-flesh-eating clientele by selling them processed female meat. Noa is just the latest one of his victims who has taken the bait. But something seems to be different about his approach to her, as she quickly learns through cell-to-cell inmate banter in the ruthless Bluebeard’s dungeon. He seems to actually like Noa, and maybe there is a way for her to use her infectious smile and enchanting femininity to outsmart this serial killer.

I’m making it all sound a lot more serious than it actually is. Know that the irresistibility of “Fresh” lies in the fact that it doesn’t take itself too seriously—all things considered, the film manages to stay light on its feet with its “Hostel” meets “ Ex Machina ” concept, mostly avoiding overt, self-righteous preachiness in its moderately-feminist tale where women’s bodies are perishable commodity. In this regard, Cave and her cinematographer Pawel Pogorzelski (a repeat Ari Aster collaborator) offer up a buffet of outlandishly gross but brightly lit visual tidbits of men savoring their pricey meals, keeping the mood nimble and wacky. Still, a huge part of the credit belongs to Stan, who goes all in on a maniacal performance that’s often laugh-out-loud funny, even when the actor leans a bit heavily towards Christian Bale ’s “ American Psycho ” mannerisms on occasion. (Two fiendishly comical scenes accompanied by Peter Cetera ’s “Restless Heart” and Animotion’s “ Obsession ” come to mind.) Gibbs is also the film’s secret weapon—while her character is dangerously close to a stock “supportive black best friend” on the page, Gibbs defies the clichés and claims Mollie as her own.

Still, the interpretation of race in “Fresh” leaves a lot to be desired—there is something to be said about a carelessly privileged white woman dragging her savvy black friend into harm’s way. Also under-explored are the motivations of Charlotte Le Bon ’s Ann—as Steve’s wife (and possibly one of his former victims), this self-interest-focused white traitor clearly feels no responsibility towards her own gender, an idea that Kahn’s script only vaguely teases and then abandons in its untidy (and increasingly gory) final act. But perhaps these are concerns for a meatier film. In the meantime, allow the tongue-in-cheek “Fresh” to satisfy your appetite for a generous helping of heartening sisterhood and eradicate your cravings for a juicy burger, possibly forever.

On Hulu today. 

Tomris Laffly

Tomris Laffly is a freelance film writer and critic based in New York. A member of the New York Film Critics Circle (NYFCC), she regularly contributes to  RogerEbert.com , Variety and Time Out New York, with bylines in Filmmaker Magazine, Film Journal International, Vulture, The Playlist and The Wrap, among other outlets.

• Daisy Edgar-Jones as Noa
• Sebastian Stan as Steve
• Jonica T. Gibbs as Mollie
• Andrea Bang as Penny
• Dayo Okeniyi as Paul
• Charlotte Le Bon as Ann
• Brett Dier as Chad
• Alex Somers
• Lauryn Kahn
• Martin Pensa

Cinematographer

• Pawel Pogorzelski

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‘Fresh’ Review: First Date? Try the Veal.

Daisy Edgar-Jones and Sebastian Stan star in a dazzling (and very funny) cannibal romance from Mimi Cave.

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By Amy Nicholson

Dating is innately predatory in “Fresh,” a wickedly funny cannibal romance and dazzling feature debut from the director Mimi Cave. Even the run-of-the-mill rotten blind date that opens the film has stomach rumbles of menace, with crabs trapped in tanks, chefs slamming knives and ducks dangling in the window. Noa (Daisy Edgar-Jones), a doe-like graphic designer in Portland, Ore., finds herself on the hook to split the check with a dingbat (Brett Dier) who loots her leftover noodles and leaves her feeling chewed up and spat out.

This singleton and her cynical best friend, Mollie (Jojo T. Gibbs), consider themselves alert to the warning signs of a bad boyfriend. But a charming doctor named Steve (Sebastian Stan), who scores Noa’s number in the produce aisle of a grocery store, manages to earn Noa’s trust, and ours, during two dates and a road trip. It’s a substantial amount of time to savor Stan and Edgar-Jones’s playful chemistry — right up until Steve drugs Noa with a poisoned cocktail, handcuffs her in the basement of his vacation home and announces his hunger for a harrowing dinner. (The screenplay was written by Lauryn Kahn, who cut her teeth writing shorts for the comedy website “Funny or Die.” ) Cue the opening credits which, coming 30 minutes into the movie, are effectively a prankish declaration that the film has played its audience for lovesick fools.

Now, the real heartbreak (and cleaving) begins. Edgar-Jones, who starred in Hulu’s “Normal People” in 2020 and who leads a feature for the first time here, can let her eyes well with wet vulnerability and, a beat later, burst into giggles at a joke about eating breast meat. She plays Noa’s predicament straight. Yet the frame around her performance is marvelously askew. Cave, the director, is a sharp observer of details: wet lips, nervous feet, the cocky way Stan plays air guitar on a severed thigh. Comedy sharpens the film’s fangs, as do Martin Pensa’s witty edits and Pawel Pogorzelski’s bold, intelligent camera movements, which stumble and swoon and occasionally somersault to make it truly feel like Noa has gone through the looking glass of terrible dates. (As a grace note, the score includes a warbling ballad played on a musical saw.)

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Daisy edgar-jones and sebastian stan in ‘fresh’: film review | sundance 2022.

Mimi Cave's horror thriller is about a young woman who falls for a dashing doctor only to discover he's hiding a stomach-churning secret.

By Angie Han

Television Critic

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Broken down into its constituent parts, there’s much about Fresh that seems familiar. You might see Promising Young Woman in screenwriter Lauryn Kahn’s scathing commentary on the horrors of modern dating, or Get Out in her shrewd use of horror tropes to amplify them. There are shades of American Psycho in its acid sense of humor, and Hannibal in its taste for luxury.

But director Mimi Cave, in her feature directorial debut, corrals these influences into a film that lives up to its title. If Fresh stumbles on the way to its own finish line, it’s still a hell of a way to launch a career.

Release date: Friday, March 4 Venue: Sundance Film Festival (Midnight) Cast: Daisy Edgar-Jones, Sebastian Stan, Jojo T. Gibbs, Charlotte Le Bon, Andrea Bang, Dayo Okeniyi Director: Mimi Cave Screenwriter: Lauryn Kahn

The first act of Fresh plays more or less like a rom-com. Just when Noa ( Daisy Edgar-Jones of Hulu’s Normal People ) decides she’s fed up with dating, she meets Steve ( Sebastian Stan ), a handsome plastic surgeon who shares her taste for Old Fashioneds and dark jokes. (On their first date, they toast ironically to the fact that both of them have dead parents.)

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It may not be true love — Noa declares herself too hardened to believe in such things — but it feels like a genuine connection. So she lets herself indulge in what her best friend Mollie (Jojo T. Gibbs) quite reasonably describes as “the straight girl’s fantasy come true,” and agrees to let Steve whisk her away to a romantic getaway in the woods.

At this point, over half an hour into the 114-minute film, the other shoe drops. The eerie opening credits roll — white text warping over disorienting close-ups of floors, paintings and what looks like pools of fresh blood — and Fresh reveals itself as the horror story it truly is.

Fresh is more fun without spoilers, but it’s not especially difficult to guess what Steve’s terrible secret is. If the wink-wink wordplay in the official plot synopsis doesn’t give it away, Kahn’s script and Cave’s visual approach drop plenty of hints long before Steve comes out with it. It’s a testament to the ballsiness of Kahn’s script, though, that Steve’s sick motives are just the tip of the iceberg. The real narrative shocks lay in how they manifest, and the gruesome consequences that ripple from them.

As Steve, Stan gives one of the most arresting performances of his career. In early scenes, he’s an eminently reasonable romantic lead — the kind of guy you totally believe could get a girl’s number at the grocery store with a cutesy anecdote about Cotton Candy grapes. But it’s when the character’s true nature is revealed that Stan rises to his full potential, channeling Patrick Bateman while dancing to Animotion’s “Obsession” in his kitchen or monologuing to an unfortunately captive audience.

That Edgar-Jones is able to maintain her footing against such unhinged charisma is a feat in itself. Even backed into the most desperate of corners, her Noa projects some inner reservoir of strength and wit that keeps the viewer from ever losing sight of the real hero.

The true star of Fresh , however, is its style — lush, unsettling and precise. Cave’s camera can be a ruthless killer. In keeping with the film’s themes about consumption and commodification, it frequently fragments human bodies into incomplete collections of parts: a mouth wrapping around a morsel of food, fingertips caressing a neck in the shower, legs pounding the pavement during a run.

When it zooms out, it luxuriates in saturated colors and rich textures, often to unnerving effect. Fresh has no shortage of gory, gleefully explicit imagery, but it also throws the viewer off balance in quieter ways. It can provoke queasiness by juxtaposing two strong but clashing colors, or claustrophobia by filling a room with too much of a single shade. Paired with a soundtrack that combines ’80s synth-pop, indie rock and electronica, Fresh is almost overwhelming as a sensory experience.

It’s as a narrative that Fresh falls a bit short. Fresh ‘s central allegory is a clever one, and the horror story that spins out from it never less than gripping. But the film settles for reiterating its core ideas in more and more dramatic terms, rather than deepening or expanding them. Then, just when Fresh threatens to run out of steam, the final 20 minutes devolve into utter chaos — as if, having no idea how to end Noa’s story, the filmmakers threw up their hands and decided to do everything all at once in hopes something would work.

In addition to the protracted violence one might expect from a horror finale, there are screamed insults, multiple chases through multiple sets, one character who knows all too well what happens to horror movie characters in their situations, a different character making exactly the kind of rookie mistake that sends horror fans howling at their screen and a kicker that underlines the metaphor one more time for good measure. None of it is subtle, and not all of it makes much sense. But regarded as a whole, Fresh is a success — a taste of its creative talents’ abilities that leave the viewer hungry for more.

Full credits

Venue: Sundance Film Festival (Midnight) Distributor: Searchlight Pictures Production company: Legendary Entertainment, Hyperobject Industries Cast: Daisy Edgar-Jones, Sebastian Stan, Jojo T. Gibbs, Charlotte Le Bon, Andrea Bang, Dayo Okeniyi Director: Mimi Cave Screenwriter: Lauryn Kahn Producers: Adam McKay, Kevin Messick, Maeve Cullinane Executive producers: Lauryn Kahn, Ron Mcleod Cinematographer: Pawel Pogorzelski Production designer: Jennifer Morden Editor: Martin Pensa Music: Alex Somers

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Fresh movie review: A bloody rom-com that bites back

Ladies, stay away from Sebastian Stan.

God, when did dating turn into such a meat market ? That's pretty much the main gag in Fresh , a clever, gory metaphor for the seemingly endless horrors of modern romance rooted in a plot twist just outrageous enough to plausibly be true.

Normal People 's Daisy Edgar-Jones is Noa, a girl wandering the arid desert of online apps and picking up the worst tumbleweeds. (One particular winner in a drapey scarf patiently mansplains the art of femininity to her, then splits the check and takes her leftovers). She despairs to her best friend, Mollie (Jojo T. Gibbs), of ever finding anyone halfway normal, but that all changes with a meet-cute over grapes at a grocery store: Steve ( Sebastian Stan ) has great hair and gets her jokes, a reconstructive surgeon who makes a mean Old Fashioned, always holds the door open, and talks lovingly of his sister and niece.

It's nearly thirty minutes in by now and the title credits haven't rolled; if this were a short film, it would be a romantic comedy. But that's not where director Mimi Cave is headed in her feature debut, and when Steve invites Noa to spend the weekend at his house in the country, the invisible screeching violins kick in. Dream-guy Steve it turns out is not who he seems, and if Noa wants to leave, she'll need to do a lot more than order a Lyft.

Bad reception is one of the script's staler tropes (when a man in a movie casually says the wi-fi in the woods is spotty, just go ahead and pack a body bag). And Stan's character feels like an amalgamation of all the handsome, dead-eyed charmers who came before him, from Scream 's Skeet Ulrich to Christian Bale in American Psycho — the guy with a golden smile and nothing but emptiness underneath.

But Edgar-Jones, who mostly got to be delicate and sad in Normal People , brings a sweet steeliness to Noa; she's not screaming slasher chum, but she's not some improbable Houdini either, and when she realizes her best hope of ever going home is to play Steve's game better than he can, she locks in. (Gibbs' Mollie has a smart turn too, though you wish there were more for her to do than the requisite best-friend rescue mission).

In a world where Get Out and Promising Young Woman have already rewritten the template for social satire as a hard-R horror show, the messages in Fresh (which begins streaming on Hulu March 4) aren't especially new or trenchant, and the final scenes tumble into midnight-movie silliness. Still, Cave has a smart, stylish way of storytelling that somehow makes a film built on bone saws and grotesqueries feel almost breezy. It's a nightmare out there; sometimes you just have to bite off more than you can chew. Grade: B

Follow EW's ongoing coverage out of Sundance here.

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‘Fresh’ Review: Modern Dating Is a Meat Market in Twisted Rom-Com Satire

Mimi Cave sinks her teeth into what's wrong with hook-up culture and the commodification of the female body in this multi-layered thriller.

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Noa hates dating, and who can blame her? All the guys she goes out with are creeps. First she has to sit through some awkward dinner, answering the same old questions, while feigning interest in whatever the douchebag du jour wants to talk about. And then comes the part where he inevitably makes a pass, leaning in for a kiss or a feel, using whatever strategy typically works for him — sweet words, empty promises, perhaps Rohypnol — to get in her pants.

#MeToo notwithstanding, modern dating is still a meat market, a concept that Mimi Cave ’s sick but satisfying “ Fresh ” critiques by taking to its most literal extreme. In this Sundance-launched, Hulu-bound midnight movie, anonymous creeps the world over are salivating for a piece of the sexy single girls they order up online, and Noa can’t help feeling like she’s on the menu. Because she is. A gory allegory for our dangerously impersonal consumption-oriented dating culture, “Fresh” has more than a little in common with past torture-porn movies: Think “Hostel,” with a wicked glow up and a lot more likes.

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Lauryn Kahn’s keep-you-guessing script captures the humiliation of the whole dating routine with a typically meh opening meet-up. After swiping past a bunch of losers on the apps, Noa (“Normal People” star Daisy Edgar-Jones ) decides to try her luck with Chad (Brett Dier), who seems nice enough online. In person, however, this dude is a dud, throwing shade on her oversize sweater and lack of makeup: “The women in our parents’ generation just cared more about how they looked,” he says. OK, but this old-fashioned gentleman doesn’t bother to hold the door, and when the check comes, he insists on splitting it. So much for chivalry.

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No wonder Noa’s bisexual best friend Millie (Jonica “Jojo” T. Gibbs) is leaning toward the other end of the Kinsey scale lately. Noa’s not quite ready to give up on men, but she’s planning to put her love life on ice when she meets a handsome stranger, Steve ( Sebastian Stan ), in the produce aisle of her local supermarket — you know, the way “our parents’ generation” used to do it. After the frustration of shopping for romance online, there’s something undeniably appealing about an IRL meet-cute at the grocery store, and so Noa agrees to give Steve her number.

That’s probably about as much as can be said about the plot without starting to spoil what’s fresh about “Fresh.” Cave and Kahn are clever to keep audiences in Noa’s position, looking for red flags but hoping for love, while Stan is a prime choice to play Steve: The actor’s plenty charming when he needs to be, with that James Marsden-y megawatt smile of his, but he’s not afraid to go dark — the ex-homecoming king with a few devious tricks up the sleeve of his blood-stained letter jacket. Edgar-Jones is no shrinking violet either, and though the film gets pretty twisted past the 38-minute mark (it’s only then that the opening credits appear), she seems reasonably capable of turning a bad situation to her advantage.

Sequels and remakes aside, pretty much all movies are like first dates, as audiences get to know unfamiliar characters and decide whether they want to spend the next 90 minutes together, so we’re probably a little more open-minded than Noa about where things might go with Steve. He presents himself as a plastic surgeon and a pretty sensitive guy. We’ve heard the horror stories of women kidnapped or violated by strangers, but it’s hard to imagine anything quite as sadistic as the scheme he’s running. (You’ve been warned.)

“I just don’t eat animals,” Steve tells Noa over their dinner together, but that doesn’t necessarily mean he’s vegan. Cave fills the movie with carnivorous cues, focusing on her characters’ teeth and the stomach-churning sight of people chewing, before dropping the twist: Steve tricks Noa into joining him for a weekend away, drugs her and locks her away in the basement. When she comes to, he explains, “I’m going to sell your meat.” Steve plans to keep her chained up in his basement, hacking off her most edible parts and sending them to an elite group of clients (all men).

Horrifying as that sounds, at least he’s honest, which is more than can be said for most of the guys she’s gone out with. The rest of the film plays like a cross between “Get Out” and Kevin Smith’s very wrong but even funnier “Tusk” (the movie where a sicko tries to turn Justin Long into a human walrus). Though such precedents exist, Kahn’s script does a fine job of delivering fresh surprises and subverting expectations. Take the scene where a would-be male savior (Dayo Okeniyi in the concerned-friend role) pulls into the driveway, hears a gunshot and drives away, rather than endanger his own life. Or the way Noa must partake in Steve’s peculiar appetites in order to take back some degree of power.

Served up with heightened style, ironic soundtrack (gleefully perverting oldies like “Obsession” and “Restless Heart”) and tongue-in-cheek approach to performance, “Fresh” comes across as a carefree bit of bloody fun. But there’s considerably more going on beneath the surface, and the allegory is open-ended enough to hit a range of viewers on different levels, à la recent Sundance sensation “Promising Young Woman.” The gender critique is just as juicy, even if the plot is a lot harder to swallow.

Reviewed online, Sundance Film Festival (Midnight), Jan. 20, 2022. MPAA Rating: R. Running time: 114 MIN.

• Production: A Hulu Original release of a Searchlight Pictures, Legendary Pictures presentation of a Hyperobject Industries production. Producers: Adam McKay, Kevin Messick, Maeve Cullinane. Executive producers: Lauryn Kahn, Ron Mcleod.
• Crew: Director: Mimi Cave. Screenplay: Lauryn Kahn. Camera: Pawel Pogorzelski. Editor: Martin Pensa. Music: Alex Somers.
• With: Daisy Edgar-Jones, Sebastian Stan, Jojo T. Gibbs, Charlotte Le Bon, Andrea Bang, Dayo Okeniyi.

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‘Fresh’ Review: Sebastian Stan Is Captivating as Charismatic Maniac in Sleek and Stylish Horror Debut

Natalia winkelman.

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Editor’s note: This review was originally published at the 2022  Sundance Film Festival. Searchlight Films releases the film on Hulu on Friday, March 4.

About thirty minutes into “Fresh,” a deliciously jangly horror movie, the opening credits roll. Up until then, the movie, which premiered in the Midnight section of the Sundance Film Festival, unfolds like an edgy romantic comedy. In the opening scene, Noa (Daisy Edgar-Jones, with a bite) shows up for an app date, which turns out to be a dud: A vain cheapskate who’s brusque with the waiter, the guy tells Noa between bites of their meal that her sweater looks shlumpy and a dress would suit her better. Reading the disagreeable signs, Noa bids him a polite goodbye, but not before Mr. Conceited Civility, upon rejection, can shout, “Good luck finding a guy, you stuck up bitch.”

This sort of bait-and-switch becomes a key ingredient in “Fresh,” Mimi Cave’s classy and clever feature directorial debut. Written by Lauryn Kahn, the movie is framed as a parable of the anxieties of modern dating, of how truly impossible it can feel for (straight) women to catch a break. It’s a familiar setup, and one that’s vulnerable to the traps of heavy-handedness and cliche. But unlike recent predecessors — “Promising Young Woman” and the short story “Cat Person” come to mind — “Fresh” doesn’t wholly aspire to be a feminist arrow to the heart of today’s heterosexual dating scene. More so, it uses its central idea as fodder for stylish black comedy. Where “Promising Young Women” tended to feel labored and clumsy, “Fresh” is sleek and nimble, a worthy new entry into the feminist revenge thriller genre.

Many of the movie’s comic pleasures are thanks to Sebastian Stan , who, invitingly clean-cut and bashful, plays a Texan surgeon named Steve whom Noa meets and exchanges endearing conversation with in an unlikely place: the produce aisle of the grocery store. “I didn’t think people met people in real life anymore,” Noa marvels later, gushing about the meet-cute to her best friend, Mollie (Jojo T. Gibbs). Even so, early dates with Steve go well, and Noa grows cautiously excited. When her new paramour asks for a weekend getaway together, Noa graciously accepts. Has she finally struck gold? It’s here that we reach the opening credits, and the movie spins into nail-biting suspense and terror.

At this point in the movie, Mollie seems to be getting the short end of the stick. Noa’s best (and seemingly only) friend, Mollie is Black and queer, a token sidekick character whose personal life, job, and dating prospects we learn almost nothing about — though we do know that she’s prone to too-loudly encouraging Noa to “get that D.”

But as the story continues, and Steve — no surprise here — turns out not to be the sweet guy he promised, both Mollie and Noa’s characters are given space to deepen. Edgar-Jones, who most notably played Marianne on Hulu’s “Normal People,” is an absorbing screen presence, taking a role that could’ve been played as dopey — the romance cynic who falls for the gentleman — and injecting it with a quiet psychological intensity. Mollie, too, becomes a character to root for independently, which is at least better than only existing as a cheerleader for her sensitive white bestie. In one scene, after Mollie can’t reach Noa for several days, she tells a Black friend that she’s worried but is reluctant to involve police in her search. “Why? She’s white, right?” he jokes in response. Mollie rolls her eyes knowingly.

But as far as performances go, it’s Stan who gets the most time to shine. Dancing around the kitchen lip-syncing to oldie pop songs or just cutting up juicy red meat for dinner, Steve sparkles with smarmy, maniacal energy, like a kind of sophisticated Tyler Durden who’s traded fight clubs for business ventures. He can play the nice guy, but beneath the chivalry he’s hungry for power, and seizes onto it like a snarling dog with a bone.

The movie is also handsomely shot. Settings are depicted in rich dark hues and feature a modern, minimalistic design aesthetic punctuated by slabs of stone and concrete. Cave has an imaginative sense of camera placement, and she’s an expert at inserting ultra-close-up shots at precisely the right moment to induce a laugh, gasp, or shiver. Her camera is always in service of the story, rather than distracting from it with artifice. That’s not to say that there aren’t visual jokes — there are, frequently — but to give them away here would be to spoil the fun.

Except for a couple of on-the-nose lines, “Fresh” wisely chooses show over tell. At the end of the bad-date opening scene, as Noa is walking dejectedly back to her car, she notices a shadowy figure approaching. She fumbles with her keys, hoping to have a form of self defense in case of emergency. Suddenly, the figure enters the light of a lamppost — and is revealed to be a smiling father with his kid in a baby carrier. Sometimes, “Fresh” seems to say, a supposed threat turns out to be nothing. Then again, sometimes it’s not.

“Fresh” premiered at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival. Searchlight Pictures will release it on Hulu on March 4.

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Review: Horror gets a complete and undoubtedly satisfying reworking in ‘Fresh’

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There’s something about a horror film that takes pride in being a horror film. “Fresh,” the debut feature from longtime music video director Mimi Cave, knows this and plays with genre in a way that is devilish and delightful — and never from a place of posturing.

Daisy Edgar-Jones stars as Noa, a woman who has seen the highs and lows (particularly the lows) of dating, from unsolicited pics of guys’ genitalia to indoor-scarf-wearing Chads . When she serendipitously meets the sincere and charming Steve ( Sebastian Stan ) — in the produce aisle of a grocery store, of all places — things seem almost too good to be true, with her best friend, Mollie (Jojo T. Gibbs), dubiously remarking, “It’s a straight girl’s fantasy come true!”

While the film’s first 30 minutes set up the modern horrors of dating for the 30-something set and the expected redemptive narrative arc, “Fresh” upends itself (and its audience) with a sudden tonal shift that resolutely punctures the story world we knew, setting into motion instead a horror film that confidently refreshes generic conventions.

With a sharply energetic script from comedy screenwriter Lauryn Kahn , “Fresh” willfully borrows from both comedy and horror in a way that destabilizes the use of each. It flirts not only with total disruption of audience expectation, but also with the boundaries of obscenity as it lands beat after beat of light-on-its-feet humor within a story world that is in all ways macabre. As too does its visual style, which is just as playful, amorphous and intentional as its script.

While both stylish and mischievous, it also knows when to pull back, allowing for moments of vulnerability and a chance to sit with Steve’s horrific nature. In comparison to a film like “I, Tonya” (coincidentally another Stan vehicle), “Fresh,” despite its consistent boundary-pushing, knows how to use its visual style and tone effectively. Here, violence against women is not reveled in, or embellished by an all-too-gleeful cinematography, but rather it rejects certain forms of visual spectacle (while leaning wholeheartedly into others) in a way that stands with, even cheers for, its women characters.

While we are absolutely witness to the gruesome and grotesque here — this is certainly not a film for the faint of heart — “Fresh” knows exactly when and when not to push into its own lurid nature. As the film’s final act ramps up, it is aware that its own stakes are too high not to invest full-heartedly in its final girls. Just as the film knows we are able to delight in the comic heights of Stan’s fantastically rendered Steve, it recognizes that we would take even more pleasure in the downfall of such a despicable man.

“Fresh,” without a doubt, has a bounty of vision and personality, but it’s also a wonderful study in an almost rabid compartmentalization in terms of its story world, its characters and its viewers. It asks us to laugh in the most hideous of situations and to humanize the inhumane without losing sight of its own call for not just rightful vengeance but collectivity. It doesn’t just offer up the most palatable aspects of horror as a genre; instead, it pushes it to its limits through a complete, and undoubtedly satisfying, reworking.

'Fresh'

Rated: R, for strong and disturbing violent content, some bloody images, language throughout, some sexual content and brief graphic nudity Running time: 1 hour, 54 minutes Playing: Available March 4 on Hulu

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After quitting dating apps, a woman meets the supposedly perfect man and accepts his invitation to a romantic weekend getaway, only to find that her new paramour has been hiding some unusual... Read all After quitting dating apps, a woman meets the supposedly perfect man and accepts his invitation to a romantic weekend getaway, only to find that her new paramour has been hiding some unusual appetites. After quitting dating apps, a woman meets the supposedly perfect man and accepts his invitation to a romantic weekend getaway, only to find that her new paramour has been hiding some unusual appetites.

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Steve : It's about giving. Giving yourself over to somebody. Becoming one with somebody else, forever. And that's... That's a beautiful thing. That's surrender. That's love.

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Fresh Review

18 Mar 2022

Fresh (2022)

“Hopefully it will make for a good story”, Noa ( Edgar-Jones ) tells best friend Mollie (Gibbs), as she psychs herself up for another first date full of awkward small talk, casual misogyny and ick-inducing sartorial choices. It’s a required approach in the world of modern dating, where fearing for your safety feels as common as falling in love, and sometimes all you can hope for is an awful experience that makes for an entertaining anecdote. That’s certainly what Noa gets when she falls for smooth-talking, self-deprecating, non-social-media-using surgeon Steve ( Stan ), finding herself — to use Mollie’s word — “dickmatised” into going on a surprise weekend trip with him after only a couple of dates, and finding out what he really means when he says: “I don’t eat animals”.

Fresh is a film of two halves, built around a rug-pull for the ages (and an exceedingly gratifying delayed title sequence). The first act swiftly and effectively establishes Noa and Steve’s connection, developed through brilliantly naturalistic chemistry and improvised banter between the two leads. Then, in a bold move reminiscent of Amy Dunne’s ‘cool girl’ monologue reveal in Gone Girl , the film shows its hand, spiralling into more gory, pulpy territory.

It walks the line between unimaginable horror and knowing comedy with ease, much of which is achieved through Stan and Edgar-Jones’ wholehearted commitment to both the tenderness and theatrics needed to buy in to all aspects of the plot. Stan in particular is having a ball, unleashing the kind of unhinged energy we’ve seen most recently from him in Pam & Tommy , and Edgar-Jones manages to make Noa’s reaction to an extraordinary situation completely believable, giving her enough edge and dimension to evolve the character way beyond a simple scream queen.

Even before the big reveal, extreme close-ups on gnashing teeth and superbly edited meat montages evoke a sense of sticky nausea.

Mimi Cave’s impressive first-time feature direction is also crucial to striking that genre-spanning tone, weaving in operatic, fantastical sequences with blunt cuts and scoreless action; her camera starts out fairly static, but shots swooping overhead and upside-down sneak in as Noa becomes more disoriented. Even before the big reveal, extreme close-ups on gnashing teeth, superbly edited meat montages and the increased volume of gulps and chews evoke a sense of sticky nausea, and the soundtrack’s consistent stream of ’80s bangers, poppy tunes and more classic instrumentals only enhances the emotional rollercoaster.

It’s not perfect; a device involving Noa talking through a wall is clunky and unnecessary, Mollie feels underdeveloped and tropey at times, and it could be argued that the change of pace half an hour in is risky, and results in a loss of tension. The script’s ‘independent woman’ moments and dating-related cynicism can be a little on-the-nose as well, as is the allegory around the ownership and objectification of female bodies. But if you don’t take that element too seriously, and allow yourself to get swept along in the heightened absurdity of it all, Fresh is an eye-widening, stomach-churning, violent delight.

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Movies | 18 03 2022

Fresh Review: A Spectacularly Twisted & Disturbing Film

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Every aaron pierre performance leading up to rebel ridge, in order, 20 of mike flanagan's favorite horror movies (picked from his letterboxd account).

Fresh is easily the most disturbing and twisted film I've seen in a long time. A woman tired of the online dating scene meets a handsome stranger at the supermarket. A whirlwind romance leads to a weekend getaway with a horrific outcome. Fresh had me laughing out loud. Then gasping in abject disgust. The film's subject matter is beyond macabre. Don't watch Fresh on a full stomach.

Noa (Daisy Edgar-Jones) is a sweet and friendly woman who's had bad luck dating. Every guy she meets online and in real life is a jerk. A chance encounter at her local supermarket seems like a dream come true. Steve (Sebastian Stan) is a handsome, funny doctor oozing charisma. Noa falls into his arms happily. Her best friend, Millie (Jonica T. Gibbs), is highly skeptical. Steve has no social media presence whatsoever. Noa finds that refreshing. She quickly agrees when Steve asks her to his cabin for the weekend.

Noa is intimidated by Steve's sophisticated taste. She can't get a cell phone signal. His wireless network is also not working. She discounts every warning sign. They did want to get away from it all. Noa wakes up after a cocktail from Steve. The terror of the situation sinks in. She begs Steve not to rape her. Steve calmly replies that he's not going to sexually assault her. He and his clients just want her for dinner.

From Romance To Cannibalism

Fresh goes from bubbly romance to repugnant cannibalism in an instant. Director Mimi Cave, in her feature debut, channels an American Psycho approach to Noa's heinous predicament. Sebastian Stan sings and dances to eighties music as he works in the kitchen. Joyfully slicing delectable cuts of tasty flesh. These scenes are darkly comedic. You can't help but laugh at his meticulous preparation.

Noa's captivity takes many unexpected turns. Daisy Edgar-Jones goes on an emotional and physical rollercoaster ride. What begins as relationship bliss transforms into cunning survival. Noa must use every tool at her disposal to manipulate Steve. Fresh's second act shocks on multiple levels. Psychological subterfuge is accompanied by a return to romance and butchery. These scenes are riveting. They're revolting as hell, but you can't tear your eyes away from the screen.

Related: Against The Ice Review: Survival Drama Fails To Be Compelling

Mimi Cave and screenwriter Lauryn Kahn skewer modern dating culture. Noa would never get into a car with a stranger. But loneliness and frustration with digital interactions allow her to be easily duped. She lets her guard down because Steve was simply a nice guy. It never occurred to her that he was too good to be true. Noa curses her stupidity. This mistake often proves fatal for women. Not vetting a partner could make you the main course.

Fresh succumbs to horror genre tropes in the final act. I had major issues with the resolve. The characters behave unrealistically in an obvious fight or flight encounter. That's disappointing because Fresh had been so original and clever, but it's an astonishing experience overall. The vegan ranks will swell after this one. Avoid Fresh at all costs if you're squeamish.

Fresh is a production of Legendary Pictures and Hyperobject industries. It will premiere on March 4th exclusively on Hulu from Searchlight Pictures.

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Fresh Reviews

Surely not for the squeamish, this film will send you away with scars of your own.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Feb 25, 2022

Screenwriter Boaz Yakin makes a stunning directorial debut with "Fresh," the gripping, finely acted tale of a 12- year-old's life on the mean streets of New York.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/4 | Sep 15, 2020

Though well acted, and handsomely shot by veteran Adam Holender, Fresh sacrifices real emotion for thriller contrivances. It's a tourist's drive through inner-city hell.

Full Review | Mar 4, 2019

The movie's two instincts are at complete odds with each other.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | Apr 21, 2015

Glibly shocking, it would like you to think it deals with the hard realities of urban life, but in fact it uses its patina of social consciousness as a come-on for the most conventional kind of violent commercial filmmaking.

Full Review | Apr 21, 2015

A gripping story of survival on the streets and survival of the soul.

It's rigorous and quite depressing fare.

The strength of the piece is that it realises which aspects of its genre have been seen too many times, always coming back to Nelson's blank but expressive stare as he watches terrible things the director doesn't need to shove in our faces.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Apr 21, 2015

Sean Nelson is a quiet revelation as the title character, a child who actively participates in what he regards as the only game in town, yet consistently demonstrates more caution and smarts than his friends or relatives.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Apr 21, 2015

The absence of moralising and macho posturing gives authenticity and poignancy to the film.

The script by writer-director Boaz Yakin is fresh itself, marrying the physical violence of Fresh's world with the intellectual violence of competitive chess.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4 | Apr 21, 2015

[Fresh is] made with a subtle precision that suggests a Vermeer landscape of the ninth circle of hell.

A hugely underrated crime drama, Fresh is worth discovering both for its air of authenticity and Sean Nelson's remarkable performance.

This is kept alive largely through its first-rate performances, beginning with Sean Nelson's as the boy; Giancarlo Esposito is also a standout.

Fresh appeals to the head as well as the heart.

Sean Nelson, who turned 13 just before the film was shot, gives a fine, self-assured performance in the title role.

An unpredictable and harrowing story that works on the surface as an unconventional thriller (an intricate plot) and underneath as a powerful story of love, sacrifice, willpower and the dehumanizing cost of violence and revenge.

You may not believe a minute of it, though you won't forget Nelson's face.

Full Review | Original Score: B | Sep 7, 2011

Yakin has put some powerful drama up on the screen, and he has been assisted by no one more significantly than young Nelson, who plays Fresh.

Full Review | Jul 6, 2010

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | May 7, 2007

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Common Sense Media Review

Cleverly dark but violent, gruesome horror movie.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that Fresh is a 2022 horror movie in which a single woman discovers that the "nice guy" she has started dating is actually a consumer and seller of human flesh. There's considerable violence: After the lead character is drugged, she wakes up chained in a windowless room. When she tries to…

Why Age 17+?

Movie centers on a woman who is taken prisoner by a guy she had started dating,

Strong profanity throughout. "F--k" often used. Also "motherf----r" and "c--t."

Man sends lead character a photo of himself touching his erect penis via direct

Lead character's cocktail is drugged by villain, resulting in her passing out an

Any Positive Content?

Diversity in gender, race, sexual orientation. Movie plays with horror movie con

In its own macabre way, this dark horror movie is a distinctly feminist comment

Movie plays with conventions of both serial killer horror movies and the dating

Violence & Scariness

Movie centers on a woman who is taken prisoner by a guy she had started dating, chained up with other women who are slowly being cut up, their flesh turned into meat to be consumed by ultra-wealthy men willing to spend a lot to eat fresh human meat. Lead character's buttock meat is removed. Lead character is drugged before being taken prisoner. During oral sex, a man's penis is bitten off; lots of blood and screaming. Characters shot, stabbed, beaten bloody. After discovering she's chained in a windowless room, lead character asks villain if he's going to rape her. Villain shown slicing human flesh from a limb kept in refrigeration, pounding it with a meat tenderizer, eating some; villain later insists that the lead character sample human flesh as a "delicacy." Close-ups of bloody incisions.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Strong profanity throughout. "F--k" often used. Also "motherf----r" and "c--t." "P---y," "t-ts," "d--k," "s--t," "bitch," "ass."

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

Man sends lead character a photo of himself touching his erect penis via direct messaging on a dating app -- also includes sleazy sexts. Passionate kissing between lead character and a man she starts dating -- implied sex when they wake up next to each other while scantily clad. When lead character tells her best friend about the encounter, the best friend says, "Get that d!" Lead character pretends to be romantically and sexually attracted to villain; they passionately kiss and seem to be on verge of engaging in oral sex when movie takes an even bloodier turn. Brief female nudity (buttocks).

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

Lead character's cocktail is drugged by villain, resulting in her passing out and waking up chained in a windowless room. Cocktail drinking during a date: Characters shown getting tipsy as they get better acquainted. Wine drinking.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Diverse Representations

Diversity in gender, race, sexual orientation. Movie plays with horror movie convention of Black characters usually among the first to be slaughtered. Toxic masculinity is a central theme.

Did we miss something on diversity? Suggest an update.

Positive Messages

In its own macabre way, this dark horror movie is a distinctly feminist comment on violence against women and empowerment.

Positive Role Models

Movie plays with conventions of both serial killer horror movies and the dating life in romcoms. Characters -- for all their strengths in figuring out how to fight back -- don't emerge as positive role models.

Parents need to know that Fresh is a 2022 horror movie in which a single woman discovers that the "nice guy" she has started dating is actually a consumer and seller of human flesh. There's considerable violence: After the lead character is drugged, she wakes up chained in a windowless room. When she tries to fight back, the villain removes some flesh from her buttocks. While seemingly on the verge of engaging in oral sex, a woman bites off the penis of her partner, her face shown covered in blood as the man shrieks in agony. Limbs are shown hanging in meat lockers. The villain is shown tenderizing human flesh and later forces the lead character to try some, since she has feigned interest as a way to try to escape. Besides the cannibalism, there's horror movie violence as characters shoot, stab, and beat each other until bloody. While on a dating app, the lead character is subjected to an image of a man's erect penis, along with creepy sexts. Strong language throughout includes "f--k," "c--t," and "motherf----r." The movie also has implied sex and passionate kissing as well as cocktail and wine drinking. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

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Parent and Kid Reviews

• Parents say (6)
• Kids say (14)

Based on 6 parent reviews

What's the Story?

In FRESH, Noa (Daisy Edgar-Jones) is a single woman who's tired of bad dates and creeps on the dating apps. It seems that her luck changes for the better after meeting the charmingly vulnerable Steve ( Sebastian Stan ) at the grocery store. After a date in which they really seem to hit it off, Noa confides in her best friend Mollie that she thinks that she has finally met a great guy, and even tells her that she and Steve are going to go on a weekend getaway. When Steve picks Noa up for the trip, he tells her that they have to stop off at his house first. While hanging out and drinking a cocktail he has made for her, she finds herself getting sleepy and passes out. She then wakes up chained in a windowless room. She soon discovers who Steve really is: a sociopathic cannibal who makes his living selling the meat of living female human flesh on the black market to wealthy men willing to pay top dollar for this "delicacy." Shocked and traumatized, Noa struggles to make sense of her predicament and discovers that other women are also being held prisoner in Steve's house. As Mollie grows increasingly concerned over Noa's whereabouts, Noa must find a way to fight back without incurring Steve's violent and cannibalistic tendencies.

Is It Any Good?

This is a disturbing, dark, and gruesome horror story that keeps the viewer guessing as it plays with the conventions of horror movies and romcoms. Fresh strikes a fine balance between blood and gore, story and message, and unsettling scenes offset by macabre humor. While so many horror movies (and romcoms) lazily plod along down well-trodden paths of clichés and predictability, Fresh reveals itself to be as aware of the tropes as you are (if not more so) and messes with these expectations without being smug about it.

This story of a romcom that goes horrifically and cannibalistically wrong takes an obvious strong feminist point of view as the scares, blood, and gore of the story offer a serious commentary on toxic masculinity and violence against women. The story, acting, and direction keep this message from overwhelming the story through preachiness, and the dark humor helps make the message a little easier to, well, consume. Overall, it's a unique combination of two genres not exactly known for their originality.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about the deeper messages behind Fresh . How does the movie use the story to comment on toxic masculinity and violence against women?

How does the movie play with the clichés and expectations of both horror movies and romcoms?

Was the graphic violence excessive, or did it seem necessary both for the story and for the movie's overall message? Why?

Movie Details

• On DVD or streaming : March 4, 2022
• Cast : Daisy Edgar-Jones , Sebastian Stan , Jojo T. Gibbs
• Director : Mimi Cave
• Inclusion Information : Female directors, Female actors, Queer actors, Black actors
• Studio : Hulu
• Genre : Horror
• Run time : 114 minutes
• MPAA rating : R
• MPAA explanation : Strong and disturbing violent content, some bloody images, language throughout, some sexual content and brief graphic nudity.
• Last updated : May 8, 2024

Did we miss something on diversity?

Research shows a connection between kids' healthy self-esteem and positive portrayals in media. That's why we've added a new "Diverse Representations" section to our reviews that will be rolling out on an ongoing basis. You can help us help kids by suggesting a diversity update.

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Fresh Movie Review: An Intense Thriller That Subverts Expectations

January 23, 2022 By Ashley Leave a Comment

Debuting at Sundance 2022, Mimi Cave's debut full length film Fresh is an intense psychological thriller that breathes new life into the genre. Take your expectations and throw them out the door, Fresh is just that, a fresh look at a dark and twisted corner of society. 

Fresh Movie Review  2022

Fresh begins like any other romantic comedy, a slightly awkward girl Noa (Daisy Edgar-Jones) is sitting through an awful first date with some guy she matched with on an app. Afterwards she tells her best friend Mollie (Jojo T. Gibbs) she is over the whole dating scene. Cue the cute grocery store meetup with the attractive and charming Steve (Sebastian Stan). They exchange numbers and end up in bed together. When he suggests a weekend getaway she eagerly agrees, not knowing where exactly they are going. They arrive at this secluded house in the woods that conveniently has terrible service. During the first night he spikes her wine and in a fog she passes out. The credits roll and what follows is an entirely different film than the one portrayed in the first 25 minutes. 

Steve has an unusual appetite for women and Noa is his latest catch. As is the audience, because Fresh lures you in and refuses to let go throughout the entire runtime. Cave deftly subverts all expectations, taking a fresh approach to a trope that is well known. She toys with the tone, presenting playfulness and comedy all the while firmly establishing without a doubt that this is a horror film. This is a nuanced look at the perils of modern dating and the fears women face on a daily basis. The result is a chilling and absolutely exciting foray into the war between men and women.

Part of the reason Fresh is so intoxicating are Cave's directions and Lauryn Kahn's clever script. The camera work is dynamic as it seemingly goes rogue like Steve before snapping into a closeup as a reminder that those delightful 80s style montages are not to be trusted. Cave's directing style that feels playful yet sharp pairs nicely with the equally funny and darkness of Kahn's writing. Her humor may seem a bit morbid but the cast delivers it in a way that you cannot help but laugh. The other reason this movie is phenomenal comes down to the main characters. 

Steve is Sebastian Stan's darkest role yet and he delivers a performance that is equal parts terrifying and intriguing. He is so brilliant in this role, easily changing between Steve's charming and sinister sides, it is impossible to look away. Even when the more grotesque moments occur. Edgar-Jones is fierce as Noa who goes from being unsure of herself to formulating a plan to escape the horrific situation she finds herself in. There is a moment when she breaks down, realizing for the first time what happened to her that will take your breath away. Her portrayal of Noa is a layered one and it is impressive the way she keeps the audience and Steve guessing her true motives until she's ready to reveal them.

True there are many elements of this story that are hardly new, but it is the way in which Cave and Kahn present them that is quite surprising and fascinating. Although Fresh  gives into familiar tropes towards the very end, after everything that occurred before that point it still feels honestly satisfying. After all, it is nice to see the women in this genre take back their lives both figuratively and literally from the men who seek to consume them. 

Thankfully, on-screen gore is kept to a minimum, mostly allowing only a look into the final results of Steve's obsession. However, this film could put you off of meat for a while, or permanently. Weak stomachs beware. 

At the end of the day, Fresh is just that, a fresh new romp through an oftentimes worn-out trope. It is deliciously evil, insanely enjoyable to watch as it takes viewers' expectations and turns them on their heads. Fresh is bound to be an instant classic horror film who's greatness future filmmakers will aspire to. After viewing Cave's incredible handiwork here, she is definitely one to watch in the future. 

Fresh premiered at Sundance this week, and is scheduled to be released on Hulu on March 4. It is Rated R or strong and disturbing violent content, some bloody images, language throughout, some sexual content and brief graphic nudity with a runtime of 1 hour 54 minutes. 

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'Fresh,' starring Sebastian Stan, is one of the best new movies on Hulu — here's why I recommend it even if you're not a fan of horror

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• "Fresh," starring Daisy Edgar-Jones and Sebastian Stan, premiered exclusively on Hulu on March 4.
• The dark comedy follows Noa (Edgar-Jones) as she navigates the horrors of modern dating.
• Hulu plans start at $7/month for ad-supported streaming, and you can get ad-free streaming for $13/month.

I have a well-documented love for Sebastian Stan's work , so I knew I'd be watching his new movie, "Fresh," no matter what. The Hulu exclusive blends elements of dark comedy and horror to tackle the world of dating.

I'm not typically a big fan of scary movies or gore, so the film's horror elements had me worried. But, after streaming "Fresh," the biggest surprise wasn't its plot twists. What really shocked me was just how much I ended up loving it.

The film focuses on Noa (Daisy Edgar-Jones), a woman who's become fed up with modern dating. She sets up dates using apps and nothing ever comes from it. After meeting Steve (Sebastian Stan) in a grocery store, they hit it off and things begin to move very quickly. From there, the flick goes down some dark and disturbing roads, but it does so with a smart sense of humor.

Check out the trailer for 'Fresh'

"Fresh" tries to do a lot of things at the same time. It's a satire, a dark comedy disguised as a rom-com, and a thriller, with hints of body horror and gore. But, somehow it all works perfectly to create a cohesive movie that clocks in at just under two hours.

The film currently holds an " 81% Certified Fresh " on review-aggregator Rotten Tomatoes and has received positive reviews from critics following its premiere at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival. Even as someone who typically avoids movies that veer into horror, I absolutely loved the film's darkly comedic vibe.

'Fresh' is an unsettling look at modern dating from the female perspective 

"Fresh" is the first feature film by Mimi Cave, who is best known for her work on music videos. The film follows Noa, a young woman who is tired of online dating. She meets Steve in a grocery store and is immediately charmed by him. She soon agrees to a weekend trip, only to discover that Steve has some unusual appetites. 

To say anymore would be getting into spoiler territory, but the movie goes down a darkly satirical path with a splash of horror.

As Noa and Steve, Edgar-Jones and Stan are a great pair. They have the chemistry required to make their first few interactions believable before the film's central twist, which comes about 30 minutes in. After that, their relationship changes entirely. 

It's not the first time Stan has played a character in a similar vein to Steve, but I'm always impressed with his ability to distinguish his "bad guy" roles from one another. Steve is a well-written, layered character whose intentions are not immediately clear. As the film starts peeling back some of those layers, you realize Steve is not who he initially said he was, and he essentially becomes the film's villain. 

"Fresh" touches on the idea that dating is hard for women, especially in the climate we're currently living in. There's a scene early on where Noa is walking to her car alone with her keys sticking out between her fingers because she feels unsafe after a date. I can't remember a scene in a movie that more accurately captures the feeling I get when I'm walking alone at night. 

I'm also impressed with so many of the movie's technical aspects. Cave's direction really shines, especially in the moments where the film shows restraint. I went into watching "Fresh" with a pretty strong idea of what the movie would be about, and with that came expectations. I think the choice to lean into the horror of the plot without crossing over into gratuitous gore is a bold one, and it works really well.

To me, it feels like the true horror of the movie isn't its gore. Insead, the real horror is found in the film's completely realistic and accurate examination of modern dating. The film uses its horror twist to relate to all-too real horrors women face on a regular basis. By the end of the movie, I found myself thinking about what I'd do if I were in a situation similar to Noa's because of how realistic this seemingly unrealistic plot really is. 

How to watch 'Fresh'

You can watch "Fresh" at home exclusively on Hulu . The movie premiered as a direct-to-streaming release on March 4. 

Plans for Hulu start at $7 a month for ad-supported streaming. If you'd rather skip the ads, you can purchase Hulu's ad-free plan for $13 a month. 

If you're looking for more shows, movies, and live sports, we recommend the Disney Bundle . The package includes Hulu (with ads), Disney Plus, and ESPN+ for $13 a month. That's $8 less per month than if you subscribed to all three individually. 

The Hulu app is available on Apple, Android, Roku, Fire TV, and Xbox devices, as well as most major smart TVs. You can also stream Hulu on web browsers including Safari, Firefox, and Google Chrome. 

The bottom line

With great performances from Sebastian Stan and Daisy Edgar-Jones, a cool soundtrack, and impressive direction, "Fresh" will keep you engaged from beginning to end. There are disturbing elements, but even as someone who normally doesn't gravitate toward horror, I'm glad I gave this movie a chance. In fact, I'm already looking forward to rewatching it. 

If you like thrillers with smart social commentary and a side of dark comedy, I recommend adding "Fresh" to your Hulu watchlist. It's a great addition to Hulu's growing lineup of exclusive movies and it's easily worth the $7 subscription fee. New members can even try Hulu free for 30 days, so you can stream "Fresh" and other films before committing to a subscription.

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Fresh review: sebastian stan exudes charm in uneven thriller [sundance].

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The world of modern dating — with its deep well of apps and swiping right and left in the hope that users will find someone they can share a connection with — has been explored onscreen in a myriad of ways. Fresh , with its double meaning, offers a different take, spinning together horror and dating in an interesting, if somewhat narratively hollow, way. Mimi Cave, in her feature directorial debut, joins with screenwriter Lauryn Khan to deliver an energetic thriller that doesn’t dig any deeper into its strong themes than it has to.

Noa (Daisy Edgar-Jones) is fed up with online dating, believing love isn’t meant for her in the way it is for others. She’s exhausted from dead-end first dates that lead to nowhere — that is, until she meets Steve (Sebastian Stan), a charming plastic surgeon, at the grocery store. Surprised as she is that people can still meet each other outside of the dating apps, Noa is immediately taken with Steve and the pair get along swimmingly. At this point, Noa has a very go-with-the-flow attitude and agrees to go away with Steve on a weekend trip, a move her best friend Mollie (Jojo T. Gibbs) isn’t too thrilled about. Noa learns rather quickly that Steve’s job is a lot darker and far more disturbing than she thought.

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Fresh takes its time building up the characters and their relationships with each other before getting to the crux of the plot. That, in and of itself, is rather refreshing considering how many thrillers don’t wait before jumping right in, often to the detriment of the characters’ development. Noa’s backstory, as well as the reasons she’s resigned to being alone, are well established; it’s why the twist involving Steve is all the more disturbing. For their parts, Edgar-Jones and Stan are excellent. They have chemistry together, with Edgar-Jones suffusing Noa with a deep sense of grit and sadness. Stan, meanwhile, really bites into his role as Steve, bringing charisma with a side of warped, unhinged behavior.

The film’s horror sensibilities are grounded, expanding upon the trepidations of real-life dating. The situation Noa finds herself in is terrifying because aspects of it could happen, with Cave and Khan leaning into that fear to make a statement. But therein lies the central issue with Fresh ; it knows how to engage with the trappings of the horror and thriller genre, but it doesn’t fully evolve its themes. Once the twist happens, the film starts to go in various directions, offering new information and scenarios that, while intriguing, don’t add much depth to its overall message.

All that said, Khan’s script certainly has a lot of potential and Cave has a lot of directorial style. The latter uses close-ups of body parts — a thigh wrapped in plastic, a frozen arm, and a scene involving a meat grinder intercut with Noa and Steve having dinner — to drive home the idea of one’s body being considered nothing but a product to be sold and consumed by others. However, the message never goes beyond the obvious, with Fresh not having much to say aside from what's brewing on the surface, using a good amount of gore and a few twists to cover up the parts where it’s lacking.

Fresh loses a lot of steam at the halfway point as Cave attempts to balance three stories at the same time, all to varying degrees of success. It leads to a conclusion that fails to be as thrilling as it sets out to be. A particular revelation that damningly conveys how not all women are supportive in the fight to protect other women ultimately falls flat because nothing ever comes of it. All told, Fresh has a lot of potential even though it doesn’t fully deliver. Cave makes a case for herself in a directorial debut that is ambitious, even when all the pieces don’t seamlessly fit together.

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Fresh debuted at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival. The film is 114 minutes long and is rated R for strong and disturbing violent content, some bloody images, language throughout, some sexual content and brief graphic nudity. It will be available to stream on Hulu March 4, 2022.

Fresh is a Hulu original film starring Daisy Edgar-Jones as a single woman named Noa who is searching for love on dating apps. But after meeting a man named Steve (Sebastian Stan), she agrees to take a romantic weekend trip with him. The only catch is that she discovers he is a cannibal that consumes and sells human flesh.

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Official Discussion - Fresh [SPOILERS]

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The horrors of modern dating seen through one young woman's defiant battle to survive her new boyfriend's unusual appetites.

Lauryn Kahn

Daisy Edgar-Jones as Noa

Sebastien Stan as Steve

Jojo T. Gibbs as Mollie

Andrea Bang as Penny

Dayo Okeniyi as Paul

Charlotte Le Bon as Ann

Brett Dier as Chad

-- Rotten Tomatoes: 82%

Metacritic: 67

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Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Fresh’ on Hulu, a Horror-Comedy in Which Sebastian Stan Wants to Eat You Alive

Where to stream:.

• Fresh (2022)
• cannibalism

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Hulu’s Fresh might confound the writers/characters in the latest Scream movie, since first-time feature director Mimi Cave’s psycho-horror bloodbath is somewhat “elevated” (hooray for feminism!) but also aims for nauseating chills (down with cannibalism!). Maybe it’s time to whip out the phrase “middlebrow horror” to define such efforts that try to have their human-liver pate and eat it too? It falls along the lines of another recent Hulu original, No Exit ; both feature a careful balance of visual panache, cheeky comedy and gory slaughterama that can be a difficult trick to pull off. But they mostly succeed, so maybe it’s time for a double feature.

FRESH : STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: This a-hole. He’s going on about his acid reflux. Over some (probably spicy) noodles. And pontificating on how women don’t dress as “feminine” as they used to. Goodbye, jackass. Dating is so very stick-figure-dropping-garbage-in-a-wastebasket emoji for Noa (Daisy Edgar-Jones). She gripes about it to her best friend Mollie (Jojo T. Gibbs) as they take turns pounding the heavy bag in a fitness class, and don’t think I didn’t notice the instructor is a condescending, phony-clapping human male who might just deserve a punch flat on that smirk. Maybe I’m reading too much into that? Or not?

Noa is at the grocery store beneath a brussel sprouts ($2.99/lb.) sign when she meets Steve (Sebastian Stan), a sort-of-funny, awkwardly charming guy. Thousands of years of human evolution did not lead to the current state of humanity so a young woman like Noa can apathetically scroll through dudes and bros (and senders of grotesque dick pics) on a lousy dating app. So when Steve asks for her number, she gives it to him, which seems like less of a gamble than swiping right on someone with a German shepherd for a profile pic. Isn’t this how people met each other decades ago? Face to face, following intuition and unconscious hormonal attraction in public places?

So Noa and Steve go out on a date. They pour down a couple drinks to stimulate the biochemical bloom, and it works. They hit it off. She shares her somewhat cynical views on the immediate situation – she hates dating and its baked-in superficial getting-to-know-you crapola, true love is a fallacy, etc. – and he doesn’t dash for the exit. They kiss and go back to her apartment and she wakes up the next morning and sneaks a creeper pic of him sleeping so she can show Mollie. Soon after, they’re hanging out and he suggests they take off for the weekend. Nobody seems interested in playing any games here. But you already know this movie isn’t about how Noa and Steve live happily ever after, or even just give it the good ol’ college try and end up in splitsville. No, this is a movie about people eating other people, so somebody is obviously playing the long game here. Hint: His name rhymes with “cleave.”

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: I’m pretty sure we’d be inflicted with about 50% more horror ennui if Jordan Peele had never made Get Out , which continues to have a ripple effect on the genre, be it thematically (racial reckoning) or tonally (serious, with a veneer of dark comedy). So meld tonal Peele-isms with righteous-woman revenge movies like The Nightingale or Promising Young Woman and add a dash of American Psycho , and you’ll land in the vicinity of Fresh . (Oh and the wavy-font logo on the poster? Pure giallo.)

Performance Worth Watching: Stan fully blossoms in the role of a (not really a spoiler alert) sadistic sociopath who’s scary and charismatic, but also shows a few chinks in his armor.

Memorable Dialogue: Let’s decontextualize this one-liner so it won’t be a spoiler: “BITCHES LIKE YOU ARE THE F—ING PROBLEM!”

Sex and Skin: Lady top/rear in the shower; a sex scene in which we don’t see much, and are ultimately rather grateful for it.

Our Take: You won’t be at all surprised to learn that Fresh is an indictment of toxic masculinity, and relies heavily on feminine perseverance to fuel the drama. That’s a familiar dynamic, and the film is purposeful and effective on those thematic fronts. What’s surprising about this tense, gory kinda-comedy is how Cave shitcans the stylistic cliches of cheapo scarefests or home-invasion thrillers – no jump scares or hammering musical cues here – opting instead for clever needle drops (almost-ironic ’80s cheese-pop) and cagey visual flourishes (the opening credits sequence) that land not with a slam-bang, but a nudge-wink.

Oh, and Cave and screenwriter Lauryn Kahn don’t shy away from sick humor. Fresh doesn’t shove our faces into the sub-floor slough of the abattoir as a sicko like Eli Roth might, but seasons the cannibalism comedy like a taboo bon vivant. Back-and-forth dialogue between Steve and Noa is layered with icky double-entendres and nauseating moral relativism, and our heroine protagonist shows a willingness to do whatever it takes to get out of her disturbing predicament, no matter how gut churning it might be (but not as gut-churning as it could’ve been, considering the subject matter; it’s no The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover ). Granted, the film isn’t always an epicurean endeavor – Cave’s cunning fizzles and fades a little in the third act, giving way to mostly rote violence and contrivances that’ll have you shouting advice at the screen. But as the opening volley from a filmmaker with wily vision, Fresh is aptly self-descriptive.

Our Call: Yum! STREAM IT.

Will you stream or skip the horror comedy #FreshMovie on @hulu ? #SIOSI — Decider (@decider) March 5, 2022

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Read more of his work at johnserbaatlarge.com .

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This Hyper-Violent British Revenge Thriller Has a Near-Perfect Rotten Tomatoes Score

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The brutal bull has a fascinating story, bull's rotten tomatoes score is shocking, bull has not earned widespread attention, bull is already available on multiple streaming platforms.

Revenge movies are a dime a dozen, but Bull (2021) is something special. Developed as a British movie, it follows the adventure of a violent monster as he hunts down everyone who wronged him. While earning praise for its incredible performances and surprising twists, it never truly scratched public consciousness. All the same, critics adore the movie.

With a near-perfect score on Rotten Tomatoes , Bull has been Certified Fresh, which is an accomplishment that only a small percentage of movies have ever achieved. With so little institutional attention, it has largely been overlooked, but that incredible accomplishment means that it deserves some measure of recognition.

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• Bull twists a typical revenge story by featuring thrilling action and a constantly shifting narrative with an uncertain timeline.

Like most revenge stories, Bull is all about violence, death, and depravity. The movie tells the story of a man who was brutally murdered by his criminal colleagues, solely because he wanted to retain custody of his son. After reappearing through mysterious circumstances, the man — Bull — begins a slow march to achieve vengeance against everyone who wronged him. He enacts that vengeance with a horrifying depravity that features blood and gore in every direction. He even fails to show appropriate care toward his own loved ones, as he never takes any step to offer a kind hand. It presents a terrifying titular character who feels more like a horror movie villain than a fully fleshed-out protagonist.

Unlike most movies, which are told in a fairly linear fashion, Bull takes a non-linear path that features flashbacks, slow reveals, and a maddening sense of tension that underlines the entire movie. As Bull continues his march toward vengeance, the movie offers some small insight into the details behind his tortured past and the horrifying truth that lies behind his resurgence. While it never actually offers an explicit explanation for his seemingly inexplicable resurrection, there is an implied reason that only makes the story's stakes higher.

In terms of fine details, the movie is quite short. At just 88 minutes , it packs an extensive amount of story into under an hour and a half. Released on November 5, 2021, the movie was directed and written by Paul Andrew Williams ( Broadchurch ). Neil Maskell ( Raised by Wolves ) played Bull, while Lois Brabin-Platt, David Hayman, Henri Charles, David Nellist, and more relatively unknown stars helped to fill out the cast. Even without immense star power, it proved to have a lasting impact, as its story spawned an incredible critical reception that continues to earn it a remarkable place in the Rotten Tomatoes listings.

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• While it has a typical audience score, Bull has a 93% Tomatometer score on Rotten Tomatoes.

Few movies ever obtain near-universal agreement on Rotten Tomatoes . Yet, with 45 reviews by critics — and 10 from top critics — it earned a relatively rare Certified Fresh designation. It received a 93% score on the Tomatometer , meaning that 93% of critics scored the movie positively. That does not, of course, mean that each critic rated it as a 9 out of 10, as the average score was a 7.5 out of 10 rating. Still, it is a surprising level of agreement. It is made even more impressive by the fact that every single top critic rated it positively.

The audiences were also relatively favorable. On the audience-driven Popcorn meter, the movie earned a 72% score. That's 21% less than the critics offered it, yet it's still a sign that audiences generally enjoy the movie. It even earned a 3.6 out of 5 score, which falls fairly close to the average critic rating. It does not indicate a sign that every viewer enjoyed the movie, as the Tomatometer score hints, but it is still a respectable score that says that the movie is certainly worth watching. Check out the chart below, which showcases the scores in an easy-to-read format:

Most critics and audience members cite the brutality as a reason behind the immense praise. The incredible choreography makes Bull one of the best over-the-top action or thriller movies because it never shies away from the brutality. Bull and his colleagues brutally murder everyone in their path without even much of a hint of remorse. People are burned, butchered, and tortured, and the movie moves along without lingering too long on the horror of it all. While it does influence Bull's outlook, he is depicted as an unflinching and unrepentant monster. That portrayal perfectly suits the narrative, given that the movie is just as unflinching as its titular character. Yet, while it does showcase the terror of the bloody fest, it still condemns it narratively in a message that does not feel nearly as ham-fisted as it could have been. The message is communicated without Bull needing to shove it in the audience's faces.

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• Bull never had a widespread release for domestic U.S. audiences, nor did it have a significant international release.

While Bull achieved acclaim, it never earned much attention even among United Kingdom audiences. It lacked a major theatrical release, which hampered its reach. The movie saw only limited releases in the United Kingdom and New Zealand, earning under $20,000 at the box office. The weak distribution can be attributed to the pandemic, as it had its debut on August 6, 2021 and its intended wider release was set on November 5 of that same year. Having been released before theaters fully recovered from the pandemic, it suffered from the same challenges that saw Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings and The Eternals stumble at the box office.

An additional challenge was its R-rating. While many R-rated movies achieve box office success , there is rarely much attention paid to international and small-scale R-rated releases. Without an easily recognizable cast or international draw , this movie simply never earned much attention at the scale it might otherwise have achieved. It failed to draw focus from major award institutions, as the small-scale and seemingly low-budget fare never had the marketing focus that a major release needs to earn that focus. In the midst of the pandemic, it simply struggled to attract an audience.

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• Bull is currently available for streaming on various platforms.

While it never received a widespread release, Bull is available for viewers to watch. The theatrical experience is shot, but anyone with Amazon Prime can load the movie on their phone, TV, laptop, tablet, or other devices and watch Bull's rampage ensue on Prime Video . It is also available on Peacock, the Roku Channel, Hoopla, and Tubi . Viewers looking to rent, rather than stream, can find the movie on Amazon or Apple TV . With so many different options, including free viewing through Hoopla, the movie is fairly accessible for anyone who might want to watch it.

The exceptional critical reception, the fascinating story, and the uniquely dreary characters made Bull an excellent movie to stream. The ultra-violent thriller demands viewers give it a chance before dismissing it outright. With a near-perfect Rotten Tomatoes score and endless praise, viewers can look past the limited theatrical release to give the movie a shot in the comfort of their own homes. Considering that it is just 88 minutes long, it hardly requires much investment from viewers, who can easily access it. Bull deserves a shot, even if it failed to earn the widespread attention that reviewers argued it deserved.

Arthur Fleck Goes on Trial in New 'Joker: Folie à Deux' Trailer

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We’re almost a month away from Joker: Folie à Deux which recently made its world premiere at the 81st Venice International Film Festival. Fans can’t wait to see Joaquin Phoenix ’s return as the titular character accompanied by Lady Gaga as Harley Quinn. As the tickets go on sale, the makers have given us another peak into this madcap world with a new trailer.

The trailer elaborates on the events from the original movie as Arthur Fleck goes on trial and is asked the same questions fans were left with. As we see, Joker isn’t alone anymore and is in love with Harley, who keeps reassuring him that he can do anything he wants. Their toxic love coupled with Gotham’s diabolical conditions, and the trial – madness ensues. The new trailer further cements the movie’s thrilling tone and promises a lot of chaos.

What to Expect From ‘Joker: Folie à Deux’?

Building on the breakout success of the original feature, Joker: Folie à Deux is set in the aftermath of Arthur killing TV show host Murray Franklin ( Robert De Niro ). While at Arkham, he meets the love of his life, Harley Quinn . The two together unleash a new chaos on Gotham City while sharing their madness. The early reviews of the feature are divisive as Folie à Deux stands at a less-than-stellar 61% on Rotten Tomatoes , a slight drop from the original’s 69% score. Mixed early reviews aren’t new for the franchise as 2019’s Joker divided the audience about its themes. However, we’ll know for sure when the audience finally gets to see the movie.

Speaking to Collider about the intense nature and musical aspect of the feature director Todd Phillips previously explained, “For the people who have seen this movie, in general, at the end, they sit and don't move for about three or five minutes, and then they text or email me and say, “I need a minute to process the movie.” I think it's unsettling. But I also think, again, not to give it away, it clarifies a lot of things that you might have had questions about in the first movie. I hope it all gets answered. But I don't think the music lessens tension, if that's what your question is, at all.

Joker: Folie à Deux debuts in theatres on October 4. Meanwhile, you can read our review here and know more about the film with our guide here .

Joker: Folie a Deux

Joker: Folie a Deux continues the story of Arthur Fleck, played by Joaquin Phoenix, as he navigates life after being institutionalized at Arkham State Hospital. Lady Gaga joins the cast as Harley Quinn, a music therapist who becomes romantically involved with Arthur. The film explores their chaotic relationship and is set in a unique musical format.

• Todd Phillips