My notes on Control (2022)
In the tradition of Cube, Exam, Vivarium, The Honeymoon Phase, Rupture, Level 16, and at least three films called Escape Room, here’s a Canadian science fiction film mostly set in a sinister high-tech cell where amnesiac Eileen (Sara Mitch) is instructed by an unseen voice (Karen LeBlanc) to perform a series of simple tasks and tests designed to measure the strength of her latent psychokinetic powers … with the threat being that if she refuses to cooperate her daughter Eve (Evie Loiselle), of whom she has an idyllic beach holiday snapshot partial memory, will be killed. Eventually, Eileen is joined in her ordeal by Roger (George Tchortov), who claims to be her husband … and the tests provoke a more extreme response, involving masked goons with guns. Stories like this almost always grip, though this particular entry doesn’t have any particular new wrinkles – performances (especially by Mitch) are good and it has a nice look, but after a year or two it’ll be hard to pick out from a line-up of the above titles. Directed by James Mark, who also co-wrote with Matthew Nayman; it has quite a bit in common with Mark’s Kill Order and Enhanced, which also deal with evil goon conspiracies and humans with nascent superpowers.
Here’s the FrightFest listing.
Signature Entertainment presents Control on Digital Platforms 26th September
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