TW: Mentions of cannibalism (not graphically described), drink being drugged, main character is held hostage.

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Female suffering in film is an incredibly common theme that we see, but it seems to be the most highlighted in the horror genre. The ability to capture it in front of the lens and be presented to an audience that will consume it in a way that you have no control over is enough horror on its own. Horror films on their own are supposed to be able to capture a terrifying experience that the viewer is able to safely engage with and after the movie has been finished, able to retreat back to the safety of their bed and think to themselves “That would never happen. I’d be a lot smarter than to be in that situation. I’d do it differently.” We all would like to pretend as though we are smarter than the horror movie protagonists, that our decisions would make the runtime of the film run a lot shorter. But what happens when the protagonists do everything right? Is that not horror on its own? What about someone making a “stupid” decision warrants us to think that they put themselves in that situation and is this healthy thinking? 

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Fresh allows the viewers to see that some of the horrors that we encounter transcend the screen and are very much a reality, especially for young women, in this ultimate look into modern dating. The film follows our main character, Noa, who is seemingly tired of putting up with bad first dates - and that all comes to an end whenever she thinks she has met the perfect guy: Steve. He’s a doctor, good with children, easy to talk to and appears to share the same humor that she does. Most importantly, she meets him organically, in a section of a grocery store (that displays her right under the “Fresh Meat” sign. Gosh.), after she had been so exhausted from having to use dating apps. 

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Their first date goes so well that Noa feels that she has finally found the guy of her dreams. Blinded by this, she agrees to go on a trip out of town with him. Her friend, Molly, warns her against this but she decides to take the risk because Steve has shown nothing but respect for her thus far. 

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Her phone isn’t working on the drive there.

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At this point you feel as though you’re screaming at the screen for her to get out of the situation, to turn back around, to cancel it. Anything to get her away from him. Because we all know how this is going to end and it is not with them being married. There’s a pit in your stomach because you just know that she was doomed by the narrative just by existing in the world as a woman. Noa being in the car here makes you feel as though it is the first instance where you have to sigh and hope for the best. You might’ve gotten a bad feeling whenever he even suggested the trip out of town but you were always thinking “Noa, don’t fall for that.” rather than focusing on Steve and wishing that he would just get out of her life. He should’ve never proposed the trip to begin with and your feelings are still making their way to Noa because she has shown to be a capable character. She takes self defense classes, she lets her friends know where she is, she has keys between her fingers, she meets first dates in a public place – Noa is supposed to be prepared. So why is she falling for this? You want her to do better. You want her to look at all the warning signs and step back and away but you know she doesn't and by the point where she doesn’t look at Steve making her drink and she begins to feel drowsy, Noa starts to look a lot less like Noa and more like the horror stories that you see about women in real life. 

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We all know how this story is going to end, even more so whenever she wakes up in a dimly lit room, confused as to why she's handcuffed.

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In Fresh we immerse ourselves into the very idea that the suffering of women, their misery in situations can be commodified and put into a package. The cannibalistic nature of men in this film transcends the literal sense of it and instead lets us know that there is something about consuming the pain of the character’s experience that makes us complicit in its creation. Steve deliberately goes out of his way to establish a relationship with his victims in order to lure them back to his home. He makes sure they’re dependent on him because they don’t have anyone else. He chooses to put them through the damage that he does. He even tells them that he isn’t going to kill them but instead is going to slowly sell their meat, letting them know that the end is the same but it will be drawn out and painful. I think that’s part of the appeal to his customers. There is something that sexually gratifies them knowing that they are consuming the flesh of a woman alive and suffering. It is not a dead body, it is a live woman trapped in the confines of her abuser’s walls who had a life before all of this (they can see this with the trinkets that Steve sends along with their meat), and they enjoy that that is now gone. They are no longer themselves but instead some sort of dish they can point to and claim as their own now. 

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Even if there is some “personalization” to the way that they are sold, they are not seen as anything more than women or pieces of meat to be sold. There is very little regard to the way that they are as people. It’s all the same to Steve’s customers, all they know is that they’re getting sold women in pain and that is enough for them to feel satisfied. In a similar regard however, I’d like to point to the women in the film and how they get along with one another. Mollie is Noa’s best friend and that is clear in the way that she so desperately tries to reach her after she has gone missing, she is all she has, there is the idea of family there but this never takes away from how they care about other women in their situation. All they see is women suffering and that is enough for them to want to reach out and comfort the other. Penny is another character in the same situation as Noa, and they speak to each other through a wall. There's anonymity between the two aside from knowing the other’s voice but that does not matter in this situation. They see each other in a way that there is no need for the physical. There is an inherent solidarity that exists within the realms of womanhood that goes past identity.

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Another woman we encounter is Steve’s wife who is complicit in his behavior and as shown as her prosthetic leg, seems to have been a victim of him himself. The way she tugs at her skin in front of the mirror suggests that she is insecure about growing older, she’s scrutinizing herself for something that happens naturally to everyone. She is afraid of getting replaced. The way she reacts to Noa being involved with Steve with anger and jealous but is unphased by his death at the hands of the women makes it seem as though she doesn’t actually care for Steve. She just didn’t want to be replaced by someone younger, with smoother skin, someone new. A new product if we’re going by the theme in the film. She had already suffered so much for Steve, put up with so much that it seemed ridiculous to her that he would ever find someone else like that, someone who would go through as much as she did just for him. The toxic nature of the relationship could have definitely been explored more but I think leaving us with her being portrayed as a representation of women complicit to men’s violence against women for the approval of them offers a lot. Being complicit under a patriarchal society as a woman will not save you from the same violence you have allowed or enacted against other women.