Millennial orphan Noa (Daisy Edgar-Jones) has trouble finding a likeable man. Her friend Mollie (Jonica T. Gribbs) encourages her to be more outgoing, and when she runs into handsome and charming cosmetic surgeon Steve (Sebastian Stan), she goes for it and goes with him to his cottage for the weekend.
And then Noa wakes up finding herself chained to a wall. And things go downhill from there.
Not to be confused with Fresh (1994).
Provides examples of:
- Affably Evil: Steve is a total monster, but he is genuinely nice to Noa throughout, even being charming to her when he's cutting off her ass.
- An Arm and a Leg: All the victims are slowly dismembered because the meat tastes better fresh; when Noa and Mollie rescue Penny, she has lost one of her legs and has to be carried by the other two.
- Arc Words:
- The exchange: "I love you." "Love you more."
- "Give me a smile."
- Bait-and-Switch:
- Noa takes a picture of Steve while he sleeps, hinting that she's a bit of a creep. She sends it to Mollie, who points out that it's a creepy thing to do. A few scenes later, it turns out she is not the creep in this relationship, when Steve roofies her and chains her to his basement wall.
- When Noa bites his penis off, she smears something white in Steve's face. It is natural to assume that this is semen, but a brief shot of a tube of toothpaste lying on the floor proves that assumption wrong.
- Beauty Is Never Tarnished:
- There is no visible change to Noa's appearance, even after she has spent days, if not weeks, locked in a cellar, chained up, and physically and emotionally tortured.
- Penny as well, despite having been in captivity longer and not having Steve's favor like Noa.
- Blatant Lies: When Noa turns down a second date on account of Chad nagging her and taking her food, Chad backtracks to claim he wasn’t interested at all and calls her a stuck-up bitch.
- Blue-and-Orange Morality: Invoked in the final confrontation when Steve is angered that Noa lied to him about being interested in trying human meat when he was keeping women captive to eat them.
- Breast Attack: It's implied that Mollie's breasts were cut off and fed to Noa.
- Bunker Woman: Steve imprisons women in an adapted multi-room basement or harem of some kind.
- But Not Too Bi: Mollie mentions that she prefers dating women, but has an ex-boyfriend whom she slightly regrets breaking up with, and is only really seen finding guys cute.
- Casting Gag:
- Daisy Edgar-Jones as a young modern woman struggling with dating a man with unusual sexual appetites? It could be Normal People.
- Sebastian Stan's character taking advantage of a girl by having sex with her just to screw with her? Could be The Bronze.
- Cell Phones Are Useless: Noa's phone doesn't work as soon as she gets to Steve's place. It is implied he jammed her phone’s signal, given other people’s phones like his own functions still at the place.
- Central Theme: Misogyny. The film opens with the frame of dating gone bad with an asshole who tells Noa she should be more feminine and pretty, and then centers on Steve, a predator who literally commodifies women's bodies as meat and who participates in pettier misogyny (he asks Noa to smile for him in a dire situation, invoking a common sexist microaggression). The film ends with Steve's female victims all rescuing themselves through their teamwork and support, with their male ally, Paul, leaving the scene without confirming they're there to avoid becoming a victim himself. The film also illustrates how women can participate in misogynist oppression through Ann, a partially-cannibalized victim of Steve's who works with him from time to time for his cannibal network, and Mollie explicitly declares that women like her are the problem.
- Conveniently an Orphan: Noa has no living relatives, which makes her a convenient target. None of Steve's women have much family, so it's obviously not that convenient for them.
- Conveniently Unverifiable Cover Story: Steve has no social media presence of his own, which makes it easier to lie to his victims and difficult for Mollie to track him down once she suspects Noa's new boyfriend may have had a hand in her disappearance.
- Creative Closing Credits: The end credits play over a Baphomet sigil.
- Deadpan Snarker: Penny has tendencies toward this, like towards the end, when Mollie and Noa carry her out of the house after fighting and maiming their captor, Mollie says she was looking for Noa and found Steve, to which Noa apologizes and says "It's All My Fault":Penny: (flatly) You guys are so cute.
- Dead Man Writing: The woman who wrote in the magazine Steve lets Noa read, though subverted in that she wastes no time announcing that she is dead, presumably because of how obvious that would be.If you're reading this, it means he likes you. Use it!
- Did Not Think This Through:
- Noa's first attempt at escape is just her panicking and trying to break steel chains with her own strength, but then her first planned escape attempt is still just trying to break the steel chains and run away.
- Mollie suspects that the man whose house she is in has kidnapped her friend. She tests her theory by calling Noa's phone. It rings in his pocket, just like she thought it might, confirming her theory...but also immediately endangering her, resulting in Steve and Ann knocking her out immediately after. Downplayed given she did set up so that if she didn’t return someone else may can call for help.
- For Steve, letting a woman he thinks is a budding cannibal go down on him is a ballsy move to say the least.
- "Everybody Laughs" Ending: The final shot is of Noa and Mollie laughing at how horrible their situation is.
- Evil Cripple: Ann is missing a leg and she occasionally helps Steve with his many crimes.
- Foreshadowing:
- When Noa tells Mollie about Steve, the first thing Mollie says is that "he's probably married." It's the least of Noa's worries, but he is.
- When she takes him home, Noa asks if she can get Steve anything to drink — or eat? Steve, who just turned down sex, replies: "No, just you".
- When Noa is having short ribs, Steve declines trying some because he doesn't eat "animals", and is suspiciously eager to see Noa eat a lot.
- Gay Best Friend: A variant. Mollie is bisexual, and she is mostly Noa's best friend whose role is to look for Noa after she gets kidnapped.
- Genre Savvy:
- Mollie is much more savvy about the red flags suggesting Steve might not really be the wholesome love interest in a romantic comedy that he initially appears to be. Sadly, Noa is too infatuated to head her warnings.
- Paul. He arrives at the cabin in the middle of the woods just as the girls are escaping and Steve is shooting at them. Unfortunately, he misses them, as he remembers what happens when a black guy in a movie tries to enter the abandoned mansion in the middle of nowhere after hearing gunshots, and he drives away.
- Given Name Reveal: Paul texts Mollie Steve's full name: Brendan Steven Kemp.
- Go Out with a Smile: Steve gives Noa a twisted bloody grin when she spitefully echoes his earlier request for her to smile, after which she shoots him in the head.
- Groin Attack: Noa pretends to go down on Steve so she can bite his dick off. As a result, he spends some time screaming before he can follow her.
- Halfway Plot Switch: As the amount of spoilers on the page might indicate, this is not just a cute romantic dramedy. It's actually a horror movie about Steve's imprisonment of Noa and her continued struggle to survive.
- High-Class Cannibal: Steve is a wealthy doctor who always had a cannibalism fetish, then went into procuring women for "the 1% of the 1%", cutting off their body parts and selling their meat to this sizeable network.
- Hollywood Healing:
- Although Steve is a doctor so Noa is on a lot of painkillers, she's still able to walk around, sit down, and go down on him after she's had her ass cut off.
- Steve recovers equally quickly after Noa bites off his penis and then still manages to go outside and attack the women.
- Hollywood Satanism:
- In Noa and Steve’s first dine she saw a revelation with a focus on some sort of Satanist-esque goat symbol.
- The last scene shows a group of robed people eating human flesh, then a Baphomet symbol is shown, implying these are Steve's clients— Satanists eating human flesh.
- How They Treat the Help: Chad, who is condescending and racist to their waitress as the cherry on top of the "awful date" portrait.
- I Know You Know I Know: After trying to expose Brendan in front of his wife, Mollie really has no way out of the situation, as both of them take her down for Steve to operate on her.
- I'm a Humanitarian:
- Brendan Steven "Steve" Kemp.
- Noa, albeit only to gain her captor's trust. She's sickened by it in private.
- A number of elites, or "the 1% of the 1%" as one character describes it.
- Presumably Ann, given she married Steve and help with Steve’s operations.
- Immediate Self-Contradiction: Steve implies that he's a vegetarian by saying he "doesn't eat animals", but then follows it up by more-or-less demanding that Noa finish her meat.
- Ironic Death: Not death per se, but the meat in the stinger is implied to be Steve's, and it's being eaten.
- Ironic Echo: Steve tells Noa to smile for him several times during her captivity. She says it back to him right before she shoots him in the face.
- Ironic Name: When she first tries human meat, Steve tells Noa that the person they're eating was named Hope, and points out the irony. The next dinner date, Noa asks who they're eating, and he replies "Melissa", which is the name of a woman two cells down who has stopped singing to herself lately, so to hide her horror Noa bursts out laughing and declares that she expected the trope to be at work in that she was named "Joy" or something.
- Killed Offscreen: Noa is imprisoned while two other women are also being held captive: Penny and Melissa, the latter of whom has already lost her mind. Later, it's indicated Melissa died since Steve feeds some of her liver to Noa, and Noa makes no attempt to free Melissa late in the movie when she gets access to the doors.
- Lima Syndrome: Steve does genuinely have feelings for Noa, it just doesn't stop... anything else he does.
- Locked Out of the Loop: Noa doesn't learn that Steve is married and that his wife is his partner in crime until the woman jumps her in the final scene.Noa: Who are you?!
- Love Forgives All but Lust: Ann doesn't care that Steve is a Serial Killer who eats women alive. She does care that he has genuine feelings for Noa.
- Love Martyr:
- Ann. She aids Steve, and her missing leg implies that she's a former victim. Even when she seems genuinely grateful that he's dead, she still tries to strangle Noa to cover up their cannibal ring.
- Zig-Zagged by Noa, who had genuine feelings for Steve before she found out who he really was. She then pretends to be developing sincere feelings for him as she's aware of his feelings for her, but it's all a lie so she can get into a position where she can bite his penis off.
- Mad Doctor: Steve is a doctor and plastic surgeon who imprisons, cannibalises, and murders multiple women.
- Meaningful Name:
- Noa is a word that means "freed from taboo", and she had better be, the way she goes about saving her and her friends' lives by playing along with Steve's cannibal obsession.
- Brendan means "prince" or "king", while Steven means "crown" or "wreath", and he is a narcissist to boot.
- Mollie can mean "rebellious", a trait which comes in handy when the police won't look for your kidnapped friend so you have to do it yourself. It can also mean "bitter", and she is the most cynical character.
- Paul means "small", and he is the only one to shrink from a confrontation instead of trying to save someone's life.
- Penny is usually short for Penelope, the woman who is famous for sitting at home waiting for her man to return. Penny lives a sinister version of this.
- Missing White Woman Syndrome:
- Invoked by Paul when he argues that Mollie might have a chance at getting real help from the police because Noa is white. Mollie disagrees, feeling she has too little evidence to be taken seriously as a black woman.
- Played With by the plot. Steve's surviving victims are two white women, one black woman, and one Asian woman, but his trophy wall (and his walk-in freezer) indicate that most of his victims have been white women, and the vast majority didn't survive or get noticed in their absence.
- OOC Is Serious Business: What tips Mollie off is that text messages from Noa's phone don't feel like they're from Noa—notably, when she says "Love you", she doesn't get back the usual reply of "Love you more".
- Pain to the Ass: Noa has her buttocks harvested by Steve as a punishment for her first escape.
- Platonic Declaration of Love: Noa and Mollie frequently exchange this.
- Police Are Useless: Invoked when Paul suggests Mollie report Noa's disappearance to the cops, arguing that "she's white, isn't she?" by Mollie laughing at the suggestion.
- Prolonged Prologue: The opening credits don't start until the Halfway Plot Switch half an hour into the movie.
- Psychosexual Horror: The movie is about a woman being seduced and eventually held captive by Steve, a cannibalistic womanizer who eats women's body parts as part of his literal sexual appetite. Although his main interest is in cannibalism, Steve does show interest in Noa and she uses it to her advantage as she bites off his penis and tries to escape with the other captive women.
- Pun: When Steve serves Noa human breast meat, she points out that he "saved the breast for last".
- Real Men Cook: To ease her fears about the prospects of being locked in a cellar and gradually fed to cannibals until she dies, Steve tells Noa he'll cook for her, which he surmises no one has ever done for her. When she expresses curiosity about his culinary preferences, he cooks her a meal.
- Red Is Violent: Most scenes have a strong red Color Motif: the red lighting in the bar where Mollie is, the red light at the boxing gym, and Noa's red sweater when she goes with Steve being just a few examples.
- Rule of Three:
- Steve makes Noa guess what the drink tastes like three times (to get her to take another sip).
- Steve serves Noa three cannibal meals: Hope, Melissa, and Mollie.
- Screw This, I'm Out of Here!: Paul almost comes to Mollie's rescue, but decides to leave at the last minute, feeling unsure he's at the right place and being resolved against becoming a victim of the gunshots he's hearing because he's a black man.
- Serial Killer: Steve is both the Hedonistic and the Cannibalistic kind: he eats his victims, but he sells the flesh as well, and he's actually not that happy with the killing part (he says), but it's a sad fact that if you remove enough flesh from a human they die.
- Sex Equals Love: Steve seduces women to get them to come to his cabin alone, but it's more or less stated he doesn't have sex with all of them. When Noa asks him why he had sex with her, he tells her that he "likes" her, and so begins his apparent genuine affection for her.
- Shout-Out:
- While Mollie and Noa discuss Noa's love life, they mention being "indoctrinated" about men by Ariel and Belle.
- Penny thinks it's unlikely that she's hallucinating Noa, because she doesn't think her subconscious would have named her imaginary friend "Noa", but rather Sean Connery.
- The ending has Steve go full Jack Torrance.
- Spoiler Cover: One poster shows a human hand in plastic wrapping, spoiling that cannibalism is involved in the plot.
- Stalker with a Crush: Despite only pretending to be this, Steve sometimes ends up liking his victims in a romantic way, such as his wife Ann, Noa herself, and the woman who wrote in the fashion magazine, as well as any who saw that note before Noa.
- Stalker Without a Crush: Steve romances women to get them alone in his cabin, always for their meat. It's implied that he stalked them on social media first to find the loneliest ones.
- The Stinger: Midway through the end credits we get a shot of five people sitting around a table covered in bleeding meat.
- Title Drop: Steve tells Noa the meat is better fresh.
- Trust Password: Invoked. Mollie gets suspicious someone else is texting her on Noa's phone when her message of "Love you" gets a heart emoji instead of "love you more". "Love you" "Love you more" is an exchange that was established twice before as a regular back-and-forth between the two women, so the text not following this pattern gets Mollie concerned.
- Woman Scorned: Implied Trope. When she learns her husband is seeing another woman, Ann becomes insecure, and ultimately tries to kill Noa with her bare hands.
- Wrong Genre Savvy: Unlike Paul, who realizes just in time that he's in a horror movie, Noa firmly believes she's in a romantic comedy and misses or ignores all the red flags until it's too late.