Warning: This article contains spoilers for Fresh.
Mimi Cave's Fresh is an inspired commentary on violence against women and how men can profit from it, but this specific line of thinking makes one death in the film the worst of all. Fresh is a unique take on horror; the genre has previously been domineered by men and therefore perpetuated (and even created) harmful stereotypes regarding femininity in proximity to violence and gore. Thus, it's refreshing that Cave's film actively rejects some of these horror tropes (the final girl, for example,) and instead celebrates and uplifts female allyship and friendship. However, this means that one death in Fresh was actually the worst.
Noa and Mollie's friendship in particular is the core of the film in many ways. Mollie's undeterred investigation into Noa's whereabouts reaches its endgame when she snoops too deeply and winds up also being captured by Steve, with the surprising help of his wife. Whilst there are some excellent examples of women supporting women in Fresh, one death, in particular, confuses this sentiment.
Whilst Steve does get his comeuppance, rightfully so, it is his wife that could be considered the film's worst casualty due to Ann's dark backstory. The first glimpse into their marriage is an interesting one, as they stand together awkwardly in the bathroom doing their retrospective night-time routines. Ann looks physically uncomfortable as Steve tells her, ''good teamwork today,'' and her body is half-turned away from him. When she undresses to get in the shower, the camera pans down to show that she has a prosthetic leg, which seems to be a big hint that she is one of Steve's past victims. The downturn of her character arc, when she is killed for trying to strangle Noa, in light of all this, does a disservice to her own trauma.
In Fresh, Ann was symbolic of the women who are complicit in the abuse of other women through her knowledge of Steve's cannibal business, thus representing those women who turn a blind eye or even enable abuse. This makes Fresh more interesting as it opens up not only men to critique, but anyone who stands to the side and allows harm to happen. However, making Ann the vessel of this message discredits her character history. There is a moment when Mollie visits their house when Ann hears Steve come home and she quickly tries to usher Mollie out, and the slight fear in her is detectable. She isn't a wholly evil character and she can't be treated as such. If Steve's wife was instead a money-hungry person who hadn't been a previous victim of his, and was just plain evil, then her ending would have more payoff. But Ann's past as a victim of Steve's means that she found a way out, similar to Noa in Fresh's ending, and has probably lived in fear of him for years, mixed with likely suffering from Stockholm syndrome.
Even when Ann discovers Steve's corpse, she responds with ''Hm,'' and nothing more. It isn't wild to speculate that his death was a relief to her, which makes her turn on Noa even more confusing. She doesn't really have a motive to strangle her; it can't really be jealousy if Ann doesn't even care when he dies. Thus, her villain arc in Fresh comes across as an excuse to have another heart-stopping horror moment just for the sake of it. Whilst Ann certainly should be held accountable as her victimhood doesn't negate her complicity, her dying as a villain makes her horrifying experience with the cannibalistic Steve almost meaningless.