Okay here’s the brutal ending of the new Disney Plus horror film Fresh fully explained

I can’t get the new Disney Plus film Fresh out of my mind. And that’s a good thing. It’s one of the sharpest, wildest, horror films of the year – complete with shock twists and a dark and spicy sense of humour to go with it. Fresh, written by Lauryn Kahn and directed by Mimi Cave in her feature film debut, is a commentary on the modern dating world with a cruel culinary twist. It’s unconventional but addictively watchable – and after premiering at Sundance it’s clear that Fresh’s formula is one that has gained both critical and commercial acclaim with film fans. But what exactly happens in the gripping Climax of Fresh – here’s the full ending explained.

What’s Fresh about and how do we get to the ending?

Fresh stars Daisy Edgar-Jones as Noa, a twenty-something who is sick of the dating scene after a string of disastrous dates and Tinder cyberflashing. She meets Steve in the supermarket, after he approaches her to chat her head off about cotton candy grapes and the two have a lot of connection. He’s deeply charming, and they swap numbers. The two meet for a drink and get on even further – Steve is a plastic surgeon from Texas with minimal social media presence. Red flags should be waving at half mast, but they bond over cherries and sleep together. So far, so rom-com.

Noa and Steve are smitten with each other, and when Noa tells her best friend Mollie about him Mollie is happy but wary of the no social media thing. Steve asks Noa to come away with him and stay for the weekend at Cottage Grove, and Noa agrees and tells Mollie she’ll update her of the details when they get there so she knows she’s safe. Steve says they’ll stay the night at his first and then go in the morning. When they get to Steve’s *stunning* house, there’s no phone signal and when Noa asks for the wifi Steve changes the subject. He makes them some cocktails and Noa realises hers is spiked – she passes out.

Things go from bad to badder when she wakes up on a mattress chained to the wall – and Steve reveals his true hand. He’s upfront with her: He’s going to harvest her for meat bit by bit and sell her flesh and hair to wealthy clients who want to cannibalise and fetishise her. This isn’t Steve’s first unhinged rodeo – he targets women without much family and has done it countless times. But he isn’t going to kill Noa straight away – he will do it bit by bit, piece by piece, keeping her alive so the meat stays FRESH. Noa makes friends with Penny – a victim she can hear through the wall who no longer has any sense of time or how long she’s been there.

Mollie is VERY suspicious

Thank GOD for Mollie. Steve texts Mollie from Noa’s phone saying that all is well, but Mollie’s alarms are raised because he’s speaking differently to how Noa would normally text her. “Noa” sends a picture of the waterfall that her and Steve have supposedly gone to, but Mollie reverse image searches it and it’s a stock photo from a website. Mollie goes to the bar Steve and Noa had their date at because she knows the bar man, and tries to convince him to give his name so she can look into Steve further. From this, she learns his name is actually Brendan Steve Kemp – and finds his wife Ann. She goes to their house to look for Noa.

When there, Ann is chill and dismissive about the whole thing. Steve then comes home, and plays dumb. They both wish Mollie luck finding her friend, but as Mollie leaves she rings Noa’s phone which goes off loudly in his pocket. As Mollie processes it, Ann smacks her round the head and reveals she’s in on the whole operation.

Meanwhile, Noa is planning. She tries to escape but Steve catches her and punishes her by surgically removing her buttocks. She then plays by his rules and asks him (perhaps genuinely out of curiosity) what human flesh tastes like. Steve gushes that it’s “Fucking exquisite.” Steve buys her a pink dress and wines and dines her, creating a meal of human meat spaghetti and meatballs. Noa tries it – and says the taste is indescribable but leaving it up to the audience interpretation if she was genuinely curious or just playing by Steve’s rules to win him over. The two dance, in a manner similar to their first date. She then goes up to Steve’s room with him and pulls his pants down. He thinks she’s going to suck him off, but she bites his genitals off and makes her escape.

The finale of the Fresh ending explained

After clocking Mollie’s phone case amongst Steve’s souvenirs from this victims, she realises her best friend is a victim too. She makes her escape with Mollie and they get Penny too, who has lost her leg. The three make their escape and fight with Steve who eventually gets a gun and chases the women outside. Eventually, they overpower him and Noa shoots him in the head. Ann arrives and finds her husband’s body but seems unphased and tells the man she’s with to put him on ice. She finds Noa and pretends to be a fellow victim but then tries to kill her.

As Ann is choking Noa, Mollie arrives and smacks her over the head like she did to her earlier in the film, and the two friends collapse in exhaustion and tell each other they love each other. As the film ends, Noa gets a text from the crap date she had at the start of the film that simply reads “U up?” Men are trash: Confirmed.

Fresh is available to stream on Disney Plus now, if you’ve somehow just read the ending explained and ruined the plot for yourself without watching. For all the latest film news, drops, quizzes and memes like The Holy Church of Netflix on Facebook. 

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