Val has an affluent lifestyle and loving husband Robbie (Miles Robbins) and the pair are trying for a baby. Things couldn't be better: a world away from her working class Vietnamese immigrant childhood.
She just needs to get her birth certificate for the visa, something her estranged father may still have in a box somewhere. It's approaching the anniversary of Val's mother's death and she'd rather avoid speaking to him. Also she's developed an irritating persistent itch on the back of her head. Robbie says to visit the doctor but she's simply got no time for that.
No good will come of this.
CW: body horror, mutilation, bugs
Shal Ngo's body horror uses Vietnamese folklore, notions of insufficient filial piety and a hereditary curse to colour a pretty conventional horror story.
Nonetheless it's nicely delivered and contrasting playback of Val's self help rhetoric with her own spiral into darkness is not exactly innovative but is still highly effective. The marriage is believable, the strained relationship with her father likewise, if unusual, and it's one of those "bad things happening to normal-ish likeable people" stories rather than "everyone's an asshole who must die" horror.
Seemingly mildly review-bombed, probably because the gamergate/anti-woke/toxic fandom crowd despise Kelly Marie Tran, but it's solid workmanlike horror with some real icky moments and the sound of scratching will really get to you.
A real little treat that I knew nothing about until it appeared 7/10.