If you haven’t already, I advise you to indulge in the new film on Hulu titled Fresh starring Daisy Edgar-Jones and Sebastian Stan. This thriller/mystery begins as normal as any movie does with two strangers meeting in a mundane way. We meet the female lead played by Edgar-Jones who is named Noa and is a woman who is trying to break the cycle of bad dating. Her history on dating apps seems to be a bad archive of men with bad social skills. After a horrible date, she meets a man who says his name is Steve in the produce section of a grocery store. The two exchange a few awkward flirtations and then phone numbers. This match moves quickly and after getting intimate, Steve asks Noa to join him on a weekend getaway right away. She agrees despite her friend telling her this is a bad idea.
To Noa’s surprise, her friend Mollie was right and she would have been better staying at home because the night she gets to the hideaway that Steve surprised her with, she is drugged with a drink he made and wakes up chained down in a secluded room. At this point, so many questions are unanswered as to why Steve has done this and what is going on? All answers are explained when Steve comes to explain that his real name is also not Steve but Brendan. He is a man that eats human meat and harvest’s the body parts of women to sell. He believes in keeping the human flesh as fresh as possible and taking certain body parts little by little while ensuring his patients stay alive as long as possible.
While Noa takes this news in and secretly plans her escape, her friend Mollie is also doing her best to find her friend. Mollie’s detective work and Noa’s deception lead to an ending that is satisfying and gruesome. This movie is gut-wrenching and gives a new level to serial killer schemes and a closer look into the demented mind of so many.
While watching this film, I was honestly petrified. I was scared because this is what the dating world has truly come to. A depressing cycle of dating apps with countless profiles that show no indication of who the person on the other side of the phone really is. This repetition of being let down by others ultimately led Noa to let her guard down and trust someone she just met only to have the worst outcome possible. This film brings out a new sense of skepticism in me that I think is a healthy boundary we forget to have in our modern world. We should be a bit wearier of strangers and always listen to our instincts and even our friends when they weigh in.
Not only does this film instill fear in any woman going shopping for produce, but it also opens a pocket of this world we rarely hear of. By this, I mean the portion of this world’s population that kills others. The portion of this world that may most definitely have a side to them we rather not see. This film opens this reminder that we as women need to be careful who we trust. In my opinion, it is always better to air on the side of caution and this film is evidence because although the story may seem like it could never happen, it very well could.
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