‘Obsession’ Review – A Case of Toxic Relationships and Shock Value?
First off, I kept seeing Obsession dominate the charts like everyone else, holding onto that number one spot at the box office week after week. So, I finally gave in and decided to give this movie a spin. When an indie horror film hits an elite level of mainstream saturation, curiosity and brewing anticipation lead to a desperate want for the hype train to be true and fulfilling, and for the film to live up to its lofty promises.
Fresh off his viral, low-budget success, filmmaker Curry Barker has stepped into the big leagues with this tenebrous debut. Focus Features famously dropped a massive chunk of change to acquire this gnarly, Monkey’s Paw-style Blumhouse nightmare after it set the festival circuit on fire, and audiences are clearly buying into the chaos.
The baseline premise is simple enough. We follow Bear (Michael Johnston), a desperate, lonely guy harboring a massive crush on Nikki (Inde Navarrette), an aspiring writer. Instead of just asking her out like a normal human being, he uses a novelty item called the “One Wish Willow” to forcefully make her love him.
Naturally, the wish works – and naturally, it goes completely off the rails! Nikki transforms into a terrifying, mercurial force of absolute co-dependency. As the narrative shifts into a relentless parade of grotesque imagery, I found myself trying to coin a phrase for what I was witnessing. And I think I hit the bullseye with this: a severe case of Toxic Shock Value Syndrome (yes, I’m going to be that guy).
The film’s strongest asset is undoubtedly Inde Navarrette’s performance as Nikki. She is an absolute revelation, seamlessly pivoting from heartbreaking flashes of her trapped, authentic self to terrifying physical horror. Of course, anyone who watched her bring depth and nuance across four seasons of Superman & Lois already knew she was going to be excellent here.
I also highly respect the craft behind the camera. Barker utilizes brilliant, claustrophobic cinematography and impeccable lighting tricks. The real magic happens in the way Nikki is framed in shadow, suddenly dehumanizing her and turning her into an object — a blank slate that Bear can project all of his desperate desires onto. In these moments, she becomes an eerie, unreadable shape, much like Michael Myers or the faceless edifice in The Wicker Man.
Visually, the movie is drenched in a high-contrast, noir-soaked mood that makes the entire world they inhabit feel like an ominous, oppressive universe. Movies are supposed to be a stylized slice of cake rather than a direct mirror of everyday life, and this rich atmospheric layer is incredibly satisfying.
Unfortunately, the masterfully built tension is constantly bogged down by the film’s relentless gross-out horror. These visceral elements don’t stay confined to the final act either; they are sprinkled early and often, ultimately flattening the sophisticated mood and distracting from the psychological dread.
The story is also heavily hampered by its narrative logic. Put simply, Bear is a complete idiot. He is also a wimpy loser, but even so, it feels entirely unbelievable that he would lack the basic self-awareness to recognize his wish as the source of this entire nightmare. He snaps the stick, she changes drastically overnight – basic, simple cause and effect. Yet, Bear tries to play the situation off for way too long – to the point of stretching credulity.
There is no living, breathing human being with a pulse these days who isn’t intimately familiar with the classic Monkey’s Paw trope. Even within the universe of this film, the characters should know better. Bear easily could have gone back to the store, talked to someone, or just read the back of the freaking box — someone actually says that exact line to him in the final act.
While the humor hits nicely on occasion, and the tension is undeniably effective in a crowded theater, Obsession ultimately sacrifices its complexity on the altar of edgelord thrills. It proves Barker is indeed a formidable visual director to watch, but the film raises a lot of great questions only to leave them buried under a mountain of empty shock value.
YouTubers are taking over Hollywood, and low-budget horror again proved that town has no excuses for its profligacy. Those are good things. Still, while the film has everyone else “obsessed,” saying it’s can’t-miss and groundbreaking, I’m here to tell it isn’t – not to the degree they are selling.
Obsession
PROS
- Inde Navarrette
- Curry Barker's visual style
- Cinematographer Taylor Clemons should become an in-demand DP after this film
CONS
- Logic
- Tries to be humorous, but isn't all thar funny
- Relies on shocks and loud screaming to be scary
