Carl

**83/100** The hype for *Obsession* (2026) has been very real, and impossible to avoid, and as such I did honestly fear that I would end up having a similar experience to the one I had with *Project Hail Marry* (2026), with a film that was... just fine in the end. Luckily, this wasn't the case at all. After processing the film for a bit, I came to the conclusion that I was thoroughly impressed with it. There's honestly not a single aspect I find most impressive, no, rather it's impressive how every single layer of this vision from director Curry Barker just works, and is executed, flawlessly. Like starting from the complete basics, the film simply just works. It's fun, engaging and incredibly scary. You feel the stakes, and the characters are believable. The more nitty gritty aspects, also just work. The cinematography is competent (and honestly felt quite 90s in a cool way), the score serves it purpose well (along with some arguably more important and more phenomenal sound design), the prop and staging work is great, and the acting is simply phenomenal. I mean, what a break out for all four of the friends, but especially Inde Navarette (Nikki). It immediately takes me back to Miley Madison's breakthrough in 2024 as Anora, in the film of the same name, as that was also a female lead that came out of nowhere, and blew everyone away. Now, the most interesting layer, and the one that ties the other two together so well, is the narrative layer. And perhaps unsurprisingly it's also the part I have the absolutely most thoughts on. **⚠️Spoilers will appear from now on⚠️** I think a good way to begin those thoughts, is earlier in the reviews. There I wrote that the characters felt believable. However, I was tempted to add more, and tempted to write that they felt realistic and were easy to understand. But there's one character we never get to understand, and that's Nikki. And I think that's the chilling truth about*Obsession*. It's not about loving a person, it's more about loving the idea of them loving you. Sure, this is fairly obvious, perhaps from the title and trailer alone, but what makes it so interesting, is that while Nikki is the most obvious threat, she's not who I found to be the most disturbing. That was Bear (Michael Johnston). Yes, while Nikki, or at least her body, was murdering her friends, and acting beyond creepy, it was Bear that remained the main threat in my eyes. Because he didn't stop, he didn't realize and he didn't think beyond his own desire. There were many moments, where he should've realized that this was beyond her consent, but where he simply didn't do anything to halt it. And whatever sympathy I might've had for Bear (nothing), completely collapsed when he didn't listen to the real Nikki, asking Bear to kill her. I guess you could write it off as him being too kind to kill her and simultaneously too scared to kill himself, but when his first reaction is to make it about himself, and about how "bad" it is to date him, the mask definitely drops for me, and Bear - the real monster of the film - reveals who he's really representing: A sexual predator. And in the end, when he finally feels too bad, caught up in consequences to do anything, he kills himself, leaving behind Nikki. The real Nikki. And I couldn't help but find it symbolic. Symbolic of how many women experience sexual assault, and are then met with a loss off friends, skepticism of their story and resistance, as well as accusations of having made it all up. Because isn't that exactly what Nikki is going to face? No one's going to believe her, and all her friends are dead to her. Just like happens to victims of sexual assault, when they're doubted and left alone. To get a bit back on track, after my admittedly uncomfortable reading of the film, I guess it'd be fitting to say that while the plot and writing is phenomenal, that the third act - specifically the ending - comes a bit fast. Especially Ian's (Cooper Tomlinson) death feels a bit "random". Still, there shouldn't be any doubt that it's written and executed in an amazing manner, and it really feels like it manages to properly explore its serious themes in a way that e.g. *Weapons* (2025) didn't. Honestly, all that's holding *Obsession* back from a 90+ rating, is the same excellence we see in the narrative and acting, brought over to the other departments, such as e.g. the cinematography, that was definitely competent, but not something that blew me away - like has been the case for almost all films I've rated 90+. *Obsession*'s peaks are amongst the highest, especially in horror, but the many other departments than writing and acting need to grow on me more before I could justify a higher rating, no matter how great I find it. So to finally conclude, I honestly think *Obsession *might be among the greatest classical horror films of the decade, and no matter how uncomfortable and disgusted I was, it was worth every minute, and should be watched as well as analyzed by everyone who values the film medium. I'm certainly happy I got to do so, and I can't wait to hear and read others' thoughts on it - which really is a sign that a piece of art is doing quite well. So it's definitely a recommendation from me - and a strong one at that.

**75/100** **(Rounded Up)** I honestly think there's lots to enjoy about *Eternity* (2025). It's no doubt a film that's more limited in scope, than what we've come to expect from A24, but more importantly, I find it's a film that knows its scope well. Elizabeth Olsen (Joan), Miles Teller (Larry), and Callum Turner (Luke), all bring the story to life, together with the amazing set design. There's certainly no doubt that you'll believe what you see, and that what you do see is quite charming too. It's a film whose story isn't too complex. The emotional trope the plot centers around has been explored many times before (although in different settings), and it's not a film that offers too much of a commentary. Despite the lack of complexity, the film has a lot of heart. There's after all a bit of a sweet message with the film, and there's a lovely portioning of comedy in contrast to the more serious elements. Yes, it's generally a very pleasant watch, and it feels well-executed. I honestly wish there was more to say about *Eternity*, but to put it simply its a familiar emotional hook paired with a unique setting, making for a fun, original and fresh popcorn movie. I'd recommend it, because it's competent and well-executed, and because it restrains itself well. And that's nice.

**79/100** Watching *The Drama* (2026) was incredibly entertaining. The disturbing revelation, really just lets the plot unravel before us, and that made both the pacing and narrative structure feel smooth and natural. It reminded me a bit of *Splitsville* (2025), that also seems to unravel quickly from a single revelation, although *The Drama* is a more grounded version of this, where *Splitsville* often leaned more into the absurd, which I can definitely also appreciate. In it's exploration, of how a single moment can change a character, I was reminded of the interesting *Anatomy of a Fall* from 2023, that explores how any person can seem like an obvious murderer, if just the moments brought up to paint said person are the exact right (wrong?) ones. Here, the plot just leans into comedy a bit more, not exactly offering the same sort of directness, as much as it wishes to trigger a reaction - and discussion - among those who watch it. I think that works well for it. Both Zendaya (Emma) and Robert Pattinson (Charlie) do a phenomenal job, with Hailey Gates (Misha) being a big surprise to me. Because I really think she does great, and hopefully we'll get to see her more. The score was another surprise, as I found it to be quite compelling. Although, the surprise didn't last long when I found out that Daniel Pemberton was behind, boasting an impressive discography, including the score for *Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018), that was of course just great. Perhaps sometimes, the film suffers a bit from seemingly wanting to remain very impartial, as it becomes a sort of just... presentation of events, that aren't all too stylized or all too interesting beyond what the plot lets it be. I think I'm missing for the film to exist a bit beyond its plot, perhaps with some cinematography or crosscutting that does something else than to serve the very explicit layer of the plot - even though there's no doubt that plot functions really well. To summarize The Drama* is fun, well-acted, well-scored and incredibly well-written, despite its lack of style and really anything not serving exactly what is happening in the plot at that moment.

**77/100** Some films suffer under being very explicitly planned as the penultimate film in a cross-film story arc - or perhaps even in an entire franchise. A very clear example of this for me, is *The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 1* (2014), that arguably barely did anything but set up the fourth and final film in the original *Hunger Games* tetralogy. Now, this might seem odd to bring up, as *Backrooms* (2026) is the very first fully fledged film in the franchise, and not a film that's meant to set up a grand finale, nor does it do it. Yes, *Backrooms* is not a penultimate film, but it suffers from something similar. It's an introductory film, and it's an introductory film that's not quite able to shake off this matter of fact, making it unfortunately somewhat embed into the structure of the film. It's to me very obvious, that director Kane Parsons wants to introduce us, the audience, to this huge world he has built around his interpretation of the Backrooms internet urban legend. In many ways, it's more successful at this than his Backrooms shorts are in this, but with the scope of his interpretation, the film can only scrape the surface. There's nothing about this that ruins the movie explicitly, and I do not wish that this liminal project, that purposefully plays with memory, would just reveal everything all at once. I suppose it just feels like the scope was expanded too fast for the format he was trying to fit it into, and that the concept already far outsizes the bits we were given in the movie. And once that is the case, I suppose you really are locked into making a very introductory film, where payoff, answers and even emotional communication feels more limited than it had to be. It's also important for me to highlight, that this doesn't ruin the film at all, and that it moreso limits it than anything. Because the scraped surface that Kane Parsons does manage to introduce us with, shows so much potential, and is so eerie, liminal and just slightly-off in the exact way his shorts became famous for. In many ways, I also feel the introduction of a named protagonist really helps do things his shorts weren't able to. As for once, it allows Parsons to play with her memory, ask how that plays into the backrooms as a concept, and how the backrooms is even connected to the human psyche if at all. At the same time, it lets us go beyond the found footage style - although it is still present - and into a role where we, the audience, watch things unfold in real time, rather than feeling that we are watching the past. The way this is mixed in, really heightens the stakes for me, also because a camera man that barely speaks, is much harder to empathise with, than Renate Reinsve as the shrink, Dr. Mary Kline. About the acting, I find it really good. I believe I read somewhere, that this film proved that even Renate Reinsve could have "misses" (referring to her immense streak of high quality performances leading up to *Backrooms*, including *Sentimental Value* (2025) and *A Different Man* (2024) among many others), which is something I found to be almost laughably wrong. There's no doubt, that this role required a more quiet performance than perhaps what she has become famous for, but I don't think it's worth holding against her, with how incredibly she pulls it off. Chiwetel Ejiofo (Clark) also greatly impressed me. He's an actor I'm glad gets the chance to lead a film as big as this, because he really does well. His character is by no means likeable, and he pulls this off in such a believable fashion, that I genuinely hope we will see him in more leading roles moving forwards. Another thing worth praising is the general production design. The sets are absolutely amazing, the locations picked are great, and the props and costumes are also just great. Manually creating liminal spaces, is certainly not easy, yet they both appear liminal and very faithful to both Kane Parsons original shorts, and the very spirit of the urban legend that the backrooms as a concept have become. To sum up everything, *Backrooms* is a film that once again shows Parsons' incredible potential, and while we get to see more of it realised here, it still very much feels like we haven't seen it fully realised yet, and hopefully, the sequel will be the first place where he can really unfold his Backrooms concept, seeing as this first film acted more than anything as an introductory piece. A very competent introdoctury piece, that's worth a watch however.