Post by Dracula on Apr 2, 2022 15:55:49 GMT -5
Fresh(3/15/2022)
Fresh is a film that debuted at Sundance, was somewhat well received, and then went right to Hulu less than two months later, which I think was always the plan. The film is a horror movie of sorts that I think can safely be described as “inspired” by Get Out but with more of a focus on gender rather than racial issues. It begins with a woman, fed up with using apps to find dates, starts a relationship with a guy she met in a RomCom style meet-cute at a grocery store. He then invites her to a vacation at a remote cabin where it is revealed that he is in fact not a kind and caring person but has instead lured her there so that he could imprison her and slowly harvest body parts from her to sell to an underground market of cannibals. So yeah, the movie takes a bit of a turn after the first twenty minutes or so. Meanwhile the protagonist tries to find ways to escape from her predicament and also has a suspicious friend on the outside who is going to try to track down what’s happened to her… a bit like the TSA in a certain other movie. The film’s villain, played by Sebastian Stan, is probably the film’s highlight. Dude is just the worst kind of narcissist and the way he deludes himself into thinking his victims should somehow be “okay” with what he’s doing to them is kind of interesting. Beyond that though I’m not sure the film entirely works. For one thing, while the film’s general grizzleyness would I suppose make it a horror film, it really isn’t trying to scare you moment to moment or really engage too deeply in the tools of suspense. I also don’t think it’s as coherent as a social metaphor as the filmmakers think it is. The Stan character’s imprisonment and cannibalism scheme is presumably supposed to represent some aspect of the patriarchy or other but I’m not sure what specifically and either way it isn’t really brought to the screen that vividly.
**1/2 out of Five
Fresh is a film that debuted at Sundance, was somewhat well received, and then went right to Hulu less than two months later, which I think was always the plan. The film is a horror movie of sorts that I think can safely be described as “inspired” by Get Out but with more of a focus on gender rather than racial issues. It begins with a woman, fed up with using apps to find dates, starts a relationship with a guy she met in a RomCom style meet-cute at a grocery store. He then invites her to a vacation at a remote cabin where it is revealed that he is in fact not a kind and caring person but has instead lured her there so that he could imprison her and slowly harvest body parts from her to sell to an underground market of cannibals. So yeah, the movie takes a bit of a turn after the first twenty minutes or so. Meanwhile the protagonist tries to find ways to escape from her predicament and also has a suspicious friend on the outside who is going to try to track down what’s happened to her… a bit like the TSA in a certain other movie. The film’s villain, played by Sebastian Stan, is probably the film’s highlight. Dude is just the worst kind of narcissist and the way he deludes himself into thinking his victims should somehow be “okay” with what he’s doing to them is kind of interesting. Beyond that though I’m not sure the film entirely works. For one thing, while the film’s general grizzleyness would I suppose make it a horror film, it really isn’t trying to scare you moment to moment or really engage too deeply in the tools of suspense. I also don’t think it’s as coherent as a social metaphor as the filmmakers think it is. The Stan character’s imprisonment and cannibalism scheme is presumably supposed to represent some aspect of the patriarchy or other but I’m not sure what specifically and either way it isn’t really brought to the screen that vividly.
**1/2 out of Five
