Kelly Marie Tran Makes for a Magnetic Scream Queen in Control Freak

A motivational speaker who’s built a career on teaching people how to overcome negativity, particularly when it comes in the form of persistent self-doubt, becomes haunted by the voices in her own head in Control Freak. Shal Ngo’s new horror feature for Hulu starts off strong only to fragment a bit in its third act—but Kelly Marie Tran, who stars as the tormented Valerie, never wavers in her performance. Tran, who came to prominence in Star Wars movies The Last Jedi and The Rise of Skywalker, has her own personal experience with negative voices—specifically, relentlessly toxic Star Wars fans. Whether or not she drew on that experience to play Valerie, we can’t say, but there are other parallels between actor and character: like Tran, Valerie is the daughter of Vietnamese immigrants who moved to America after the war. Fortunately, only the fictional woman is plagued by supernatural trauma that manifests in terrifying visions and excruciating acts of body horror, in particular a nagging ... Read full article.