Control Freak, now streaming on Hulu, takes parasitic feelings (such as anxiety or self-doubt) and turns them into literal parasites in a fresh new approach to body horror. The movie stars Kelly Marie Tran (Star Wars: The Last Jedi) as Val, a motivational speaker whose need for control in her life is upended in ways that stretch from failed attempts to conceive to an un-scratchable itch. It is precisely said itch that gives way to the movie’s monster, known as a “Sanshi,” a Daoist demon that feeds on the misery of its host.

Val’s Vietnamese idenтιтy is an important piece of Control Freak’s puzzle, as is the generational trauma she has inherited from her parents. While she is forced to face her fears and confront her past in order to alleviate the parasitic itching, she must also deal with the future she has planned with her husband Robbie (Miles Robbins), ensuring that she doesn’t let her personified anxiety pᴀss onto the next generation.

ScreenRant interviewed Tran, Robbins, and director Shal Ngo about the exciting resurgence body horror is having in pop culture. Tran also revealed the most challenging and rewarding aspects of shooting the Hulu original movie, while Ngo broke down how the soundscape added a unique element to the tension-building in Control Freak.

Control Freak Capitalizes On The Moment Body Horror Is Having

“We All Have Bodies, So It’s A Genre That Gets Under Your Skin”

Control Freak isn’t alone in exploring important issues through a body horror lens, with The Substance offering the most recent blueprint for riding that train all the way to awards season. Tran expressed her love for not just the Demi Moore movie but also the subgenre itself. “There’s a history of horror films not being taken seriously,” the actor acknowledged. “But I just think it’s such an exciting time for this genre.” She added very astutely, “This genre is such a cool way to address a lot of serious themes without it feeling like, ‘Oh, we’re teaching you a lesson.’”

Robbins chimed in to express how natural it is as a vehicle for terrifying audiences. “We all have bodies, so it’s a genre of horror that gets under your skin (quite literally),” he explained. “I think it’s very effective for everybody.” Even before the release of Control Freak, the actor reported his friends’ discomfort with the trailer alone. “I think that’s really something. If even the trailer and subject matter are enough to give you this feeling, then that’s doing the job, right? Body horror can so easily achieve that in all of us who have bodies.”

But what makes Control Freak stand apart from its peers is the use of sound design employed by Ngo ad his team. “This movie is designed to drive you slowly insane,” the director revealed. “As a viewer, you want to lose your mind a little bit.” While the final edit doesn’t maintain all the possible sounds that were originally meant to repeat, “There’s definitely a repeтιтion of everything in the score.”

The repeтιтion is evident in everything from the voices Val hears to the memories of her mother’s death that she tamps down, but the most important thing to Ngo is “the sound of the itch being a lot closer, and having the itch sounds be a little bit louder.” This meant turning up the impact of the itch in the mix throughout the movie so that it would bother the audience as much as it did Val herself.

When it came to the Sanshi, Ngo explained that “we went through a lot of different sounds,” eventually combining various animal sounds to achieve the ultimate effect. Even that decision went back to the theme of offensive repeтιтion. “You everything to be louder than it’s supposed to be, in a non-diegetic sense,” the director admitted. “You want the pipe to be rattling. You want the radiator to be hissing. You want the lights to be buzzing. You want just every environment to be as uncomfortable as it can be.”

You heighten all the things around you, and you start to feel like it’s almost that OCD, or that feeling you get sometimes in a quiet room where you can hear something way too loud, and it starts to drive you a little bit insane. All the sounds are designed to make you crazy.

The Biggest Challenge Of Making Control Freak Was Also Its Greatest Joy

“I Went Home Every Day Feeling Exhausted In The Correct Way.”

Much of the film rests on Tran’s shoulders, as she must bear both the emotional weight of Val’s trauma as well as the physical burden of hosting a demonic parasite. But the actor was more than up to the task – not to mention grateful for the opportunity. “It was hard, dude, but also I will say that I went home every day feeling exhausted in the correct way,” Tran gushed. “In a way that was like, ‘I felt used today… but in a good way.’”

“I think the whole thing was a challenge,” she admitted, which is fair to say of most movies in the body horror category. “There’s a lot of physicality, and there’s a lot of emotion in the movie.” Scenes between Val and her father were especially poignant, as well as ones where she and Robbie must come together. “There were things that we were trying to work out on the day,” the actor added, which was ironically the best part.

“The best thing about it was that I had such a great group of people around me,” Tran said with pride. “Shal really made the environment feel welcoming, so I could just try stuff and be creative. And then I had Miles who was so wonderful and supportive, and taught me how to knit because I was way too stressed.” The cast and crew each played their parts perfectly to make up the symphony of sound that is Control Freak.

The biggest challenge is surviving the movie’s sound, so we asked the team which sounds make their skin crawl. Robbins complained about “gated reverb on a snare drum. It’s a very 1980s sound.” Tran went the more psychological route: “When I can hear a high sound frequency that no one else around me can hear, it just makes me feel crazy.” Finally, Ngo said, “When [someone’s voice] is either a really low or really high voice, and it cuts through the frequencies. I have this whole emotional turmoil, or I start to really hate that person.”

Source: Screen Rant Plus