Hulu's "CONTROL FREAK" (2025) Doesn't Scratch All Of It's Subtextual Itches (REVIEW)
When filmmakers are allowed to go back and expand upon a previous film, the results can be mixed. The allure is easy to understand, and you often have a bigger budget and/or support to bring more ideas to life that were prohibitive prior. A successful example of this is Anthony DiBlasi’s “Last Shit”/”Malum,” where DiBlasi was able to revisit the core premise of “Last Shift” while expanding upon the lore and practical effects in “Malum.” Some lesser examples would be something like “Baghead” where the initial and effective short became somewhat dulled by the transition to feature-length. It isn’t easy to adapt one’s self, let alone try to reframe a story under a different context, but that’s the charge with Shal Ngo and Hulu’s latest original, “Control Freak” which is set to release on March 13, 2025. Is this a welcome expansion of the previously bite-sized work, or does this work better in smaller doses?
WHAT’S IT ABOUT?
A motivational speaker is tormented by an unrelenting itch on the back of her head.
HOW IS IT?
We all know the feeling of having that itch that you just can’t seem to scratch, whether it be literally or figuratively, and despite our efforts the sensation persists. There are few things more aggravating and annoying than the sensation of an itch, but what if that itch was something more than what it seemed? That’s the premise behind “Control Freak,” which elaborates on a 6-minute short converting it into a 104-minute feature. While we weren’t privy to the original short before screening “Control Freak,” we feel safe in assuming that one is not a prerequisite for the other based purely on runtime, but the expansion into a longer format is fraught with choices that add helpful context at the expense of an overwhelming amount of subtext which does and doesn’t pan out.
Val (Kelly Marie Tran) is your typical Type A personality. Her routine runs like clockwork to ensure she gets the most out of her day, she is organized and mindful, and above all, she’s a control freak. For anyone who has a Type A person in their life, Val will resonate deeply both in her representation of the toxically positive guru and in her inability to let go and trust those around her. Even her partner, Robbie (Miles Robbins) finds it hard to break through to Val given how calculated and cold in her presentation she is and it leads to rifts in their relationship like the ones she has with her family. A mother who passed when she was a child, a heroin-addict father who abandoned her, and being raised by an Aunt who may have resented her. This had made Val the tough and motivated thought leader she is today, but the itch on the back of her head is getting worse and it may be causing her further harm and it may impede her ability to launch her pending World Tour. Tran’s characterization of Val is pitch-perfect as she encapsulates how so many self-help gurus curate their lives to the outside world while disregarding important matters in their personal lives. It speaks to how our society has incentivized hustle culture while diminishing the importance of taking care of one’s physical and mental well-being. For Val, it’s a rat race, but one she is intent on winning, just so long as she can get this itch sorted, but is the itch the real culprit of Val’s struggles?
As mentioned before, there are a lot of themes and subtexts in “Control Freak” and some are handled with more care than others. As an indictment of our obsession with image curation and presenting the world one’s best possible self, “Control Freak” only scratches the surface of what’s possible there. We see how Val’s choices negatively affect her, but she also makes decisions that feel downright silly like when she is literally bleeding from her head and decides to continue ignoring it. No matter how work-focused you are, it’s hard to believe that Val would simply ignore this for so long, and the same could be said of the relationship between Val and her father, another thread running through the film. Her father is a drug addict and Val blames him for her mother’s death, but it isn’t until the end that he tells her the truth about what happened to her mom, and with that a whole slew of questions like, “Why didn’t her father tell her this earlier?” Just to keep track, we have the theme of hustle culture, familial strain, and the physical manifestations of stress, but then we add in the mental health layer and things get even messier. The metaphor of mental health and horror isn’t as novel as it once was, and in “Control Freak” it feels a bit like a cop-out in how it’s attributed here as it conflates varying mental health disorders without ever really acknowledging any specific ones by name. Is it OCD? Anxiety? Childhood trauma? It’s never really clear what role mental health is supposed to play here, especially once the truth about what’s happening is revealed leading to a third act that feels like it’s from an entirely different movie. There are opportunities to unpack how our parents pass on their worst traits, but it’s hidden under a mess of body horror that feels misaligned with the film’s point. “Control Freak” isn’t a bad film by a longshot either, it’s beautifully shot, expertly edited, and has great use of sound design, but the overstuffed ideas distract from creating something more cohesive and satisfying.
LAST RITES
“Control Freak” has a lot going on thematically which makes for some uneven presentation of the different topics touched on. Tran’s performance alongside the audio / visual presentation stands out, but the overall narrative lacks focus from trying to cover too much ground.
THE GORY DETAILS
Directed By
Written By
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Where can you watch it?
“Control Freak” the provocative new horror feature premieres exclusively on Hulu March 13, 2025!
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