REVIEW: ‘Control Freak’ Monster Horror on Soap2day
Writer: Shal Ngo
Starring: Kelly Marie Tran, Miles Robbins, Kieu Chinh
The film "Control Freak soap2day" is so unvarnished, untidy, and honest that it appears to have been ripped from the creators' bodies. Written and directed by Shal Ngo, it tells the story of Valerie, an influencer on the brink of mainstream fame who has a persistent itching sensation in the back of her head. Valerie's books and seminars combine pop psychology, motivational quotes, and evasive personal confessions. The more Valerie scratches, the greater the itch gets, and the more repulsive it becomes.
"Control Freak" is a psychodrama about relationships and families; it examines how people of Vietnamese descent integrate into mainstream American society; it tells the tale of repressed national and personal traumas showing up in day-to-day life; and it's a thriller reminiscent of "Rosemary's Baby" about a woman who knows something is seriously wrong with her body but can't get anyone to take her seriously.
There is also a good deal of talk about mental illness running in Valerie's family, with her late mother serving as the locus. However, the film avoids taking an either/or stance here, either the demon is a real monster or it is a metaphor for mental illness, as in "the demons in my head." It is a true mental illness. The monster, with its Xenomorph nails and twitching tentacles, is a monstrous feat of CGI, puppetry, and costume.
In my experience, Valerie's unpredictable behavior and growing desperation have escalated to the point where her illness, whatever it is, has taken center stage in her life and is methodically ruining everything she has worked so hard to achieve, including her marriage to Robbie, her creative partner, her business and media relationships, and her audience, who project their own problems onto Valerie and view her as a coping mechanism for their own problems. In this way, "Control Freak" is structured similarly to a traditional addiction or mental health story, where the main character has to determine what is wrong with them, deal with it, and take action to take back control of their life.
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