'Control Freak' is out now on Hulu. Read our review here: https://www.dreadcentral.com/reviews/525027/control-freak-review-kelly-marie-tran-steals-the-show-in-new-hulu-horror/
Dread Central
https://www.dreadcentral.com/
Check Out Our Podcast Network- https://www.dreadcentral.com/dread-podcast-network/
Grab your Dread merchandise, movies, and more- https://store.dreadcentral.com/
Follow Dread Central on social media:
Facebook- https://www.facebook.com/DreadCentral
Instagram- https://www.instagram.com/dreadcentral/
Twitter- https://twitter.com/DreadCentral
TikTok- https://www.tiktok.com/@dreadcentral
Dread Central
https://www.dreadcentral.com/
Check Out Our Podcast Network- https://www.dreadcentral.com/dread-podcast-network/
Grab your Dread merchandise, movies, and more- https://store.dreadcentral.com/
Follow Dread Central on social media:
Facebook- https://www.facebook.com/DreadCentral
Instagram- https://www.instagram.com/dreadcentral/
Twitter- https://twitter.com/DreadCentral
TikTok- https://www.tiktok.com/@dreadcentral
Category
🎥
Short filmTranscript
00:00Cool. Hi, I'm Mary Beth McAndrews from Dread Central. How are the two of you? Hi, wonderful. How are you?
00:05Good. Congratulations on Control Freak. Shaul, congrats on making your short into a feature. How has it feel?
00:12Thank you. How's it feeling to have this happen?
00:14Good.
00:15Feeling good. Yeah, excited for people to see. A little nervous. I hope people like it, you know. Hell yeah.
00:21Well, and I'm curious because I've seen the short and I've now seen Control Freak and I was curious about, you know,
00:26obviously there's the same core, but you really expanded this story out into something so interesting.
00:31And I wanted to hear what that process was like for you in taking the short and making the story for Val.
00:37Yeah, sure. So when I made the short, to be honest, I didn't, I had like ideas of where it could go.
00:44But I was really caught up in sort of the, the sciency aspects of it and
00:52there was, you know, there was a whole script where she was this video game programmer.
00:57It was a very different movie, but there wasn't really like an in, in the same way.
01:02There wasn't a way to access it.
01:05It was kind of pedantic and not really relatable enough.
01:10It didn't really go, it didn't really move in a way that, like there were a lot of interesting ideas, but it just like, it doesn't, it didn't jump off the page.
01:17You know what I mean? In a way that you need to have these movies do.
01:20And it started working a lot better once I, you know, followed like the oldest thing.
01:24They tell you like day one of film score or whatever, like write what you know, but it is applicable.
01:29And a lot of this, you know, my, my grandfather was a Buddhist monk and a soldier.
01:35And a lot of the themes, a lot of the stuff that's in the movie is as insane as it is.
01:41It's coming from a more real place for me in terms of my family and people that I've dealt with.
01:46So once that was incorporated into it, it started to make a lot more sense.
01:49And I was like, I even was, I, I was like on a bunch of these like wellness journeys back in the day.
01:56I did like a landmark forum and this other shit.
02:00So I have a complicated relationship with, with, you know, that Tony Robbins desk energy where I think it's like a total, a total hoax and I buy into it.
02:10So I thought that was, you know what I mean?
02:12Like it was a good, a good way into that.
02:15Or I did, I wouldn't have to be like completely like this is complete bullshit.
02:20Cause I actually think there is a lot of, a lot you can take out of that.
02:23But obviously this, this takes a little bit more, I don't know if it's satirical, a little bit more judging it a little bit, but I thought it helped just to have these different elements already in me.
02:34And I could write it from a more truthful and interesting place.
02:38So that's when it started to come together.
02:39Once I figured out those aspects of it, cause then I could like really see Val.
02:43And once you get more of a sense of who she is, then you can have her start doing like more and more outlandish shit and you can get it just, you can just like have things just go so terrible.
02:55Wow.
02:56Did not expect half the shit in this movie to happen to her.
02:58Like, Oh my God, in a good way.
03:00I love that though.
03:01Cause again, horror, I've seen a lot of it.
03:03So to get me to shock me is very fun.
03:06So it was awesome.
03:07But Miles, really quick for you.
03:10I loved you and Daniel isn't real.
03:11It's like, was one of my favorite, like of recent memory.
03:13And I know that, yeah, I know this is dealing, like you're playing a much different character, but they both deal with mental, like mental illness in really interesting ways.
03:21What do you think is so interesting for you about like scripts like that?
03:25And also for audiences, like what is so, I think, interesting for you as a performer?
03:30Yeah.
03:30Um, well, I guess, you know, first off, I'll just say that I, I really appreciated being on the other side of it in this one.
03:39Uh, but, uh, but I think it's really, you know, important for an actor like Kelly in this film or me in the, in, in Daniel to, to have that support system and that person to work off of.
03:52And, and though the journey might be one of kind of, uh, being alone in your head and your madness to in real life, have good support around you is so important.
04:04So it was really nice to have the perspective of having gone through that to, um, to then be a support system for Kelly as she went through that.
04:12So that was very nice.
04:12But I think what I'm, uh, I think we all know people or have ourselves, um, engaged with a mental health issue, uh, which turns reality to something else.
04:30And it makes us question what reality is and our reality in the sense of, of, of literally our understanding of the world around us, but also of our identity and our understanding of ourselves.
04:43And, um, it's just, uh, I think, uh, uh, uh, evergreen topic of conversation.
04:50Um, and I think that one of the things that's most interesting about it is how impossible it is to see from the outside, but how, um, interdependent everything is and, uh, how the people who, uh, are maybe oblivious to the internal experience of somebody, um, can either offer a lifeline or, uh, fail to understand in a fatal way what that person is going through.
05:20So I think it can teach us something about not only what it is to experience these episodes, but also how we can maybe be of help to each other and be more understanding.
05:30An aunt has just come to visit me.
05:32We've conjured.
05:35And this is really, so this is, is this my reality?
05:38Is this real?
05:39I don't know.
05:40I don't know.
05:41I have to watch control freak on Hulu.
05:44Nothing more perfect.
05:46It just happened unless that's amazing.
05:48That actually does lead to a question though, because why ants shot?
05:51Like, I love the use of ants.
05:52I feel like we think of them so innocuously as just like a bug that you don't, you don't think about a bug in terms of a horror movie, like an ant to me, but I love how you chose ants as your inspiration and as your horror vessel a little bit.
06:05Well, I did love ants when I was a kid, I had like a little, I made the little like clay one.
06:10I'm remembering now.
06:12I was kind of obsessed with them.
06:13They were so strong.
06:14They can carry so much.
06:16They can carry so many times their body away.
06:18The way that they can communicate.
06:20This is fascinating.
06:21Oh, they started with just the sensation.
06:23I get this sometimes.
06:24Like, like, I think something's crawling on me.
06:27I think a lot of us get it.
06:28And I've had, had ants crawling on me before and like weird bugs crawling on me.
06:32And it freaked me out when I was a kid.
06:34And yeah, I just thought that was like a perfect sort of just that visceral sense of having an
06:40itch, you know, like that's the scene where it's crawling on her.
06:42I just thought it just gives you the heebie-jeebies in the perfect way for the film.
06:46And also like, spoiler alert, when you realize where the, the entity is coming from, like those
06:51swampy areas are covered in all kinds of critters, you know, it makes sense that it would kind of
06:55come out of that space.
06:57So there was enough of a logical explanation behind it.
06:59And I just thought it would be like real creepy and give you like really good texture on, on,
07:05on, on the Sanji.
07:06You know what I mean?
07:07Like when it's in darker spaces, like little, almost like these little particle effects,
07:11like little things hitting the light in the, in different spaces.
07:15It's just like, ew.
07:16I'm getting heebie-jeebies thinking about it a little bit.
07:19Just like a little itchy.
07:21I do feel itchy.
07:22Well, and I think something about this movie that I really appreciated was like, I have OCD.
07:27And so a lot of this film reminded me of my own like actions around that.
07:31And just now I'm scratching the back of my head, just like thinking about it subconsciously.
07:35But it's really interesting how you translated all of this, like all of these, those like kind
07:40of realities into this horror film, which is the beauty of horror.
07:43But I just was curious, like, like towing that line about trying to figure out the best way to
07:49represent mental illness, but also make a horror movie.
07:51Like, I feel like it's such an interesting tension as a director and a writer to kind
07:55of push and pull.
07:58Totally.
07:59Yeah.
07:59It's hard to, you know, you don't want to go too far in any direction.
08:03You know, like you don't want too many scares.
08:04You don't want too few scares.
08:06You want like the plot to be moving in X, Y, Z.
08:09So yeah, it was definitely like a balance, but it was, it was definitely important that
08:14the itching was kind of front and center all the time, whether that's through sound design
08:18or whether it's, you know, just put another close-up itching and have her itching the car,
08:22in the car every single time.
08:23I mean, as long as you sort of, it's that, I think maybe you connect with that too with
08:27the OCD.
08:27It's just like the repetition of it, like kind of happening like over and over again
08:31in different cases.
08:32And it's like the same, but it's different.
08:34And I was just like,
08:35It's comforting, it's almost like a blanket.
08:37And it feels like a comfort blanket at the same time, but you know, it's not.
08:40But yeah, it's interesting.
08:41I love how you and Kelly with her physicality, like really embody that.
08:45I think it's so, something you don't see in the genre a lot.
08:48And it's, I appreciate that.
08:51Thanks.
08:52Hell yeah.
08:53Yeah.
08:53And then Miles, one last question for you really quickly.
08:55You and Kelly have, like you mentioned the dynamic between the two of you is so interesting.
08:59What was it like working with her as a scene partner?
09:01Because she's like on 100 in most of this movie.
09:04It's gotta be so cool.
09:05She is so lovely and so sweet.
09:09And I was so honored to just get to support her in this part that was such a challenge
09:15for her physically and mentally.
09:18So to be able to, you know, be her assist on it, I was just so glad.
09:24And she, you know, we had a great time on set and would share a car a lot.
09:32And we went to the aquarium together.
09:34We had a great time working together.
09:36And she's so lovely.
09:38And it was just, yeah, it was my pleasure to get to be her Samwise Gamgee on her little journey.
09:47Well, it's not a little journey, but her devastating, transformative,
09:54horrifying, burdenless adventure.
09:58Well, thank you both so much for chatting with me about Control Freak.
10:02Congratulations.
10:02This is such a little gem.
10:04So thank you so much.
10:05Thank you so much.
10:06Thank you so much.
10:07Have a good one.