Fresh off the press in Hulu’s Original movie lineup, Control Freak starring Kelly Marie Tran feels more like a Shudder Original movie instead. It’s a pretty good psychological horror movie that combines a slow burn throughout the movie and culminates in pure chaos towards the end. At first, I thought the movie played on the usual cliché of highlighting internal trauma and maybe even mental illness in characters, where they seem to be the only ones to hear the voices and see the freaky stuff happening around them. Yes, Control Freak isn’t any different in this regard, but I took away the meaning that everyone has a little “control freak” in them.

Val’s role as a motivational speaker played perfectly into the setting. Someone who sounds like they’ve mastered their own self, someone who seemingly realizes, acknowledges, and is able to overcome all their flaws to become the best version of themselves is the perfect host for a spiritual entity that feeds on weakness and the need for total control. Unfortunately, it’s one of those movies that yet again has a lot of parts that rely on the audience to figure out themselves. So what does it mean in the end when Val’s boyfriend Robbie was also able to see the entity in the pool after saving her? Throughout the movie, the spiritual entity, Shanshi, was thought to have only existed in Val’s mind. Something that only she is aware of and can see as she’s the one being haunted by it. So with Robbie being able to also see it, that came as a slight surprise. I took this to mean, as I’ve mentioned earlier, that the Shanshi demon is not something that is hereditary and only passed on from family generation to generation but can also be attached to anyone. Yes, this is contradictory to the theme of the movie, but I don’t know how else to explain this part.

Val’s hand being somehow reattached in the ending scene seems very odd. For one, prior to her fight with the Shanshi in her basement, she sawed off her right hand. It even prominently showed a quick scene of her throwing her own hand away in the trash can. Of course, what is thrown away in the trash can can be retrieved afterward, but it also showed her cauterizing her wound right after the injury. Is it even possible to reattach a limb after this? Maybe it should have shown her with a prosthetic hand instead. I also took it that Robbie, in the end, decided to leave Val. She was by herself while holding her child after having previously asked Robbie if he wanted to stay after she finally got pregnant.