Valerie (Kelly-Marie Tran) is the kind of person everyone wants to be.
Proclaimed as the “Queen of good habits,” Val has become the ultimate self-help guru. She’s regularly stopped by people on the streets thanking her for changing their lives. Val has written books about how to get your life on track, and she’s on the cusp of her first lucrative global speaking tour that’s going to push her career to the next level.
On the surface, her life is perfect: A gorgeous home, a loving husband (Miles Robbins), and plenty of fortune and fame. In reality, she’s haunted by a compulsive itch in the back of her head. Shal Ngo’s Control Freak, now on Hulu, is a slow-burn horror that builds into one of the most grotesque, bloody scenes in recent memory. And it takes a great performance from Tran to give it gravitas.
The sound design of Control Freak turns something as simple as an annoying itch into something deeply disturbing. Val compulsively scratches at the same spot over and over, slowly breaking deeper and deeper into her skin. The furious sound lodges in your brain and is enough to make your skin crawl.
But for Val, it’s far more than a mere scratch—it becomes an all-consuming problem as she creates a bigger and bigger wound in her head. As she learns more about her troubled family’s past, she comes to believe the itch isn’t just a compulsion, but rather a demon living inside her.
(Warning: Spoilers ahead!)
Throughout Control Freak, Val comes to believe that the demon inside of her was passed on from her mother, an idea that burrows deeper than the itch that plagues her. It’s called a Sanshi, a demonic parasite that burrows in your mind, attempting to take over and existing solely to drive you closer to death. Val’s mother died when she was just a child, and while they had a rocky relationship, Val believes a Sanshi caused her mother to die, and that there’s one inside her trying to do the same thing.
Val’s obsession leads to a public breakdown, which puts her marriage on the brink. Though she’s convinced the demon is inside her, Val also believes that the more she scratches and gives into the pain, the more the parasite takes hold of her. But nothing can stop Val from scratching, even though she’s opened an atrocious seeping wound in the back of her head. So Val considers the unthinkable: The only way she can stop the temptation is to remove her hands.
In her basement, Val argues with the parasite (taking the form of herself), who instructs Val to end her own life: ”No one will miss you” it urges. But despite everything going wrong, there’s still a ferocious fire in Val’s eyes. She wants to live. She spots a small buzzsaw on the floor of her workspace and knows what she has to do.
The moment is punctuated by an ominous score and Val’s sharp, heavy breathing, quickening in pace as the reality of sawing her own hands off sets in. Val’s forethought kicks in, tying her husband up in bed so he can’t stop her. She puts a band around her wrist to manage the bleeding. Attaching the saw to the machine, the whirring begins. It’s time.
Tran’s performance is nothing short of mesmerizing. You can feel Val’s pain through Tran’s breathing, and the determination exploding through her eyes. She tries to psych herself up to bring down the saw, but the fear of pain overwhelms her. Pacing back and forth in the room, you can feel the weight of her family’s past on Val’s shoulders. She knows what she needs to do, but it’s a hell of a task: Could you saw your own freaking arm off?
In one swift motion, Val lets out a blood-curdling scream, running back to the machine, placing her arm down, and bringing the saw down on her. It’s a moment of pure horror as Val mutilates herself. The camera doesn’t shy away, closing in on the saw tearing through Val’s bones, blood splattering everywhere.
To this point, Control Freak shied away from getting too gory, making this moment of bloody excess all the more shocking. Tran’s ferocious scream when the saw comes down is one you won’t forget anytime soon, piercing deep into your heart like the itch in the back of her head. Tran’s heartbreaking work here proves her not only a great scream queen but an actor that can make the most outlandish scenarios entirely believable.
Val doesn’t try to stop the saw when it comes down, knowing she must remove her hand to stop the itching. The machine smokes (it’s not exactly accustomed to cutting human flesh), and she’s drenched in her own blood, but nothing will deter her from her mission.
After a few seconds, her hand comes clean off the bone. There’s a chilling sense of calm after the hand is removed, and she coldly throws it into the dumpster. As Val prepares to excise her remaining hand, she’s thankfully interrupted by the demon, who has other plans for her. But thanks to Tran’s committed turn, one fully believes she wouldn’t have hesitated to cut her other hand too.
