Warning: spoilers for Fresh
The horror movie Fresh explores the world of modern dating with a dose of cannibalism added to the mix, and it hints that the movie’s final girl, Noa, ended up eating part of her best friend, Mollie. The horror genre has been through a great run in recent years, but it has reached a point where it feels stuck with too many franchises releasing remakes, reboots, and “requels”. Luckily, there are still original stories hitting theaters and streaming platforms, and among the most recent ones is Fresh.
Directed by Mimi Cave and written by Lauryn Kahn, Fresh is a comedy horror movie that follows Noa (Daisy Edgar-Jones), a young woman disillusioned and tired of online dating. One day, she’s approached by a man named Steve (Sebastian Stan) at the supermarket and they exchange numbers. The two go on a date and they seem to click immediately and have a lot in common, so they start dating. Some time later, Steve convinces Noa to go on a weekend break away with him but decides to leave the next morning, so they stay at his luxurious house. There, Steve drugs Noa and reveals he harvests female meat and sells it to mysterious and wealthy clients, and Noa is his new victim. What Steve wasn’t counting on was Mollie (Jonica T. Gibbs), Noa’s best friend who starts looking for her.
With the help of Paul (Dayo Okeniyi), Mollie found out the true identity of Steve and where he lived, but it was a trap and he took her back to his home, where he kept her captive. Fresh takes a twist when Noa subtly convinces Steve to let her try human meat with the purpose of earning his trust and escape at some point, and during their first dinner together, Steve tells her the meat she’s eating is that of a woman named Hope. During their second dinner together, Noa asks for the name of the woman whose liver they are eating, revealing it was Melissa, a girl she had heard of before through fellow victim Penny (Andrea Bang). Steve then shows Noa some of the objects of his victims he has kept and Noa notices Mollie’s phone case, and the movie then cuts to him serving her the next dish: breast meat, and the dialogue hints at them being Mollie’s.
Steve explains that the dish is “fatty and subtle” and “might even be familiar”, with Noa laughing and telling a joke. Noa then breaks down, and this is the only time she doesn’t ask who they’re eating. After their first dinner, Steve took Mollie to harvest, and the next time the audience sees her she’s in her cell, wearing a hospital gown. It’s hinted that Steve took Mollie’s breasts after that first dinner and cooked them for the second one, hence why the line about the dish being “familiar”. Although later that night, when Noa rescues Mollie, she doesn’t seem to be with any physical impediment to fight, run, and even carry Penny in her arms, it’s worth noting that Steve, as he was a doctor, gave his victims heavy medication post-harvest, and along with the adrenaline of the moment, they could have helped Mollie escape without any complication.
Whether Noa really ate part of Mollie’s body in Fresh or not is unknown, as the rest of the movie doesn’t confirm nor deny this, as it was all about Noa, Mollie, and Penny running for their lives. Unless Cave and/or Kahn confirm or deny that Steve prepared Mollie’s breasts for Noa during their second date, it’s up to viewers to decide if that could have happened or Steve was simply referring to something else by saying the dish could be “familiar”.