Vague Visages’ Control Freak review contains minor spoilers. Shal Ngo’s 2024 Hulu movie on Disney+ features Kelly Marie Tran as Valerie “Vy” Nguyen, Miles Robbins as Robbie and Kieu Chinh as Aunt Thuy. Check out the VV home page for more film criticism, movie reviews and film essays.

Shal Ngo, a fellow Minnesotan, has become one of my favorite indie directors. In March 2023, after watching The Park — a small-budget budget movie that preceded Chloe Guidry’s star-making role in the 2024 Hulu miniseries Under the Bridge — I noted in a Vague Visages review that Ngo, an NYU graduate, is “clearly more interested in surviving as a filmmaker than playing with the park’s shiniest and most expensive toys.” With Control Freak (also a Hulu original), the director broadens his cinematic horizons with a horror story about an American motivational speaker and her Vietnamese heritage. It’s a seemingly simple tale, with plenty of solid gore, that complements its titular premise with a deep breakdown of familial trauma and long-term consequences. Evidenced by IMDb audience scores and Rotten Tomatoes breakdowns, Control Freak is a timely example of a modern horror film that doesn’t resonate with general audiences but appeals to worldwide film critics through its performances and overall quality.

Control Freak stars Kelly Marie Tran as a motivational speaker named Valerie “Vy” Nguyen. The female protagonist plans to start a family with her husband, Robbie (Miles Robbins), but doesn’t quite feel ready due to her mental health, which seems to be deteriorating because of personal insecurities and a persistent urge to scratch her head — a body horror inciting incident that would please the horror master David Cronenberg. Furthermore, Vy struggles with the mysterious death of her late mother, which in turn leads to an uncomfortable reunion with her estranged father, Sang (Toan Le), who now works a spiritual healer despite an on-going addiction issue. As the protagonist clashes with her surviving parent, she receives much-needed feedback from her aunt (Kieu Chinh as Thuy), a proud woman who wishes that her social media-conscious niece would pay more attention to her family than adoring fans.

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Control Freak, despite its technical brilliance and strong central performances, might not impress global cinephiles via the narrative connection to the modern horror classic The Substance (2024). In fact, during my aforementioned review of Ngo’s The Park, I noted that it’s “somewhat like a miniature version of the popular video game adaptation The Last of Us.” For clarity, Vy consistently worries about her appearance and cultural persona in Control Freak, just like The Substance’s Elisabeth (Demi Moore) struggles with insecurity issues in Coralie Fargeat’s horror movie. However, visual artistry differentiates the two films, as Ngo’s director of photography, Scott Siracusano, stays consistent with a warm interior color palette during domestic scenes to contrast with the protagonist’s brighter lifestyle elsewhere. It’s also worth noting that Control Freak includes plenty of psychosexual moments and decent gore, which solidifies the film as a proper horror production.

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In general, Ngo writes strong dialogue and produces strong performances from his leads. Whereas The Park thrives via younger leads, Control Freak peaks when the filmmaker lets his older actors cook. The horror flick would indeed work with Tran leading the way on her own, though the cultural commentaries hit harder through veteran performers like Chinh and Le. Control Freak likely won’t crack Hulu’s top 10 list in the weeks after its initial release, yet there’s plenty of sharp and accessible dialogue that essentially functions as a sturdy thematic foundation as Tran and company uplift the film with their character interpretations.

Control Freak released March 13 on Hulu and Disney+.

Q.V. Hough (@QVHough) is Vague Visages’ founding editor. Thank you for reading film criticism, movie reviews and film essays at Vague Visages.

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