Obsession
Genuinely incredible from start to finish. Tense from opening to close and the camera work was amazing. The way Barker used the camera to highlight specific shots using repetition was mind blowing. Damn near perfect horror movie that relies on tension and uncomfortability for scare rather than cheap jumpscares. Also huge plus for relying heavily on the uncanny valley.
First off, the movie does a great job of making Bear at first understandable and maybe even like able, but then highlighting his passivity and how it ultimately makes him irredeemable. Every bad thing in this movie happens because lives his life as a passive observer, waiting for things to happen and for people to help him. The movie starts with that, where he simply refuses to tell Nikki the truth when it’s given to him on a silver platter. It highlights that obsession isn’t just the flashy kills and stalky behavior but it’s also a silent idea that someone falls in love with. Bear the entire movie is in love with a fantasy. He isn’t in love with Nikki, if he was, he would’ve been perturbed more by being with this facsimile of her (which he picked up wasn’t her from the very beginning). However, the movie doesn’t suspend disbelief either, it makes it believable for Bear to genuinely doubt and ponder over what’s happening. He’s naturally confused and is worried, but ultimately his passivity causes a train wreck of issues in chasing this fantasy. His fantasy was met but it wasn’t what he’d hoped because he didn’t truly feel love, just a deep quiet and unregulated obsession. Bear was reasonable in genuinely being confused and maybe wanting to stick with a relationship he’d be pawning for even if it was clearly maligned. However, it’s clear his refusal to act, specifically when Nikki asks for mercy, shows his true intentions. He doesn’t care for Nikki the person, he wants Nikki the girlfriend. All he cares about is fulfilling and maintaining the idea, and will risk the lives of those around him to that end. Then, at the end, he does the one thing other than make the wish, and he attempts to take it back. It puts a nice bow tie on his arc because it shows that deep down, he can’t act. He’s stuck in a world of fantasy and where he’s divorced from reality entirely. He doesn’t want to kill himself because it’s a decision he has to make, he doesn't have the strength, to at the bare minimum atone and save the one person he can, Nikki.
The side characters were also greatly written albeit maybe sloppy or downright stupid at times (Ian 😒). Sarah genuinely cared and represented a world where Bear can act, where Bear can live a realer life. She’s actively attempting to become better and is the ONLY person who genuinely consoles Bear about his cat, and she cares from him throughout the movie. She likes him of course, but in that course she doesn’t attempt to hurt him, but wants the best for him consistently. This is exactly why Bear’s grotesque negligence leading to her death is powerful. He doesn’t stop Evil Nikki, he just watches. He doesn’t tell Sarah to drive away even though it’s the obvious thing to do with a psycho maniac in the house. Bear expects action to be taken for him. For fucks sale the girl literally went to his house. Evil Nikki held no physical power over Bear, but the idea and fantasy in his mind kept him chained from acting at any point in the movie.
Ian gets a straight up fuck you paragraph. A good character definitely. It represents how obsession a lot of times isn’t just a one man thing, but it’s a fire with multiple fuels. This whole thing would have never happened had Ian been honest to his friend. Instead, Ian manipulated Bear into doubting himself, sinking him further into his delusion rather than pushing him to be direct and actionable. All while hiding that he was sleeping with her, which would’ve completely shattered Bear, but would’ve been a reprieve compared to what happens. In some ways, Ian, like Bear, fails to act, fails to speak; and that costs lives. Ian deadass deserved more than just a bullet to the head bro he needs a whole thermonuclear device. Then him wishing for a billion dollars when your friend, covered in blood, is looking deranged after all the events of the movie, begging you to do something extraordinarily simple. Ian is the villain of every movie for all time. The name shall forever be tainted beyond recognition (sorry for all my non-evil Ians).
Finally and really most importantly Nikki. Her character is interesting because looking at it, she isn’t perfect either. She knew something was up with Bear, and that Bear clearly liked her. Bear did lie about his feelings, but Nikki gave weird signals that could be interpreted a certain way. It’s not her responsibility to be fully averse to this, if it were not for the fact that she was sleeping with the best friend of a person who likes her. Nikki hurt Bear actively by omitting that all while having a clear residual understanding that Bear had some sort of feelings. It goes into what I spoke about obsession how’s it’s not just one fire one fuel, but a concoction of things that’s creates a hell storm. Granted, the blame still primarily falls on Ian. However, as Bear’s friend, Nikki should’ve been more candid about her lack of feelings. HOWEVER, this poor woman suffered through the worst things this entire movie. The concept of being trapped inside of a body that’s out of your control is horrifying. Genuinely the thought sickens me and that’s what a good horror movie does. She had to witness everything, and Bear, being aware that she was trapped and still failing to do what’s write truly made him a monster. All the moments where Nikki tried to break free looked like a wild animal desperately clawing for control. The movement was quick erratic and violent and genuinely horrifying. Her soft “kill me” and “we never were” were genuinely gut wrenching. She knew what was going to happen and tried desperately to stop it but couldn’t. The wailing at the end shifting as well. Evil Nikki’s wail’s sounded like a eldritch monster being stabbed, but Nikki’s cries were subtly different. It was a pure expression of desolation and hopelessness. The movie ended perfectly and having her be the last one to live is a nice representation of obsession tropes. Normally obsession breaks the victim mentally, and similar to how I talked about with Bear, it puts victims in states of inaction. Bear was not acting out of obsession figuratively, while Nikki physically couldn’t. Victims of stalking feel out of control of their own lives and it’s miserable, and to see Nikki confront that at the end with pure agony was such a smart way to have the movie ended perfectly.
Guys I think I kinda liked this movie. Only complaint is that Ian and Bear acted completely idiotically at some moments where I had to suspend my disbelief momentarily. It was just weird things like the billion dollars and why Bear wouldn’t just ask for a random person to wish for him, or why he drove back to ask Evil Nikki of all people. Those mostly came in at the end however and I can get the lack of thinking in the heat of the moment, but it still felt a little contrived and nonsensical.
Overall, great movie, probably the best horror movie I’ve ever seen (Sinners isn’t rly horror it doesn’t count). Fuck Ian. 9.5/10
Edit: Here’s some extra thoughts I had from a rewatch. My score remains the same, genuinely such a great movie :
He makes himself small to achieve affection and have others lower their guard. Evil Nikki sees that and attempts to reach out through that avenue of self pity, hence the misunderstanding. Evil Nikki folds into Bear’s perception of love, utilizing self-deprecation, lies, and cowardice rather than straightforward communication.
The perception of love changes as they advance. Evil Nikki’s perception remains fixed on the moment of the wish, the infatuation of first love. But as time goes on, love shifts into mutual enjoyment rather than that honeymoon phase.
Ian’s words and Sarah’s words are both difficult to take at face value, compounding the issues of communication the group shares as a whole. Evil Nikki may have adopted Nikki and her friends perception of love as well, one based on backhanded communication and lies rather than directness.
Similar to Bear, Evil Nikki defused conflict not by directness, but through aversion. Regular Nikki seeps through in moments like the sex scene, where her autonomy is at her lowest and she’s just a husk by which Bear’s will is imparted.
The death of the romance and the first cracks forming in Bear’s fantasy, where Nikki and Evil Nikki must fight for control and how Bears view of how love should be given isn’t the same as how Bear views receiving love.
Evil Nikki fights to represent Bears vision of love but fails and it becomes increasingly impossible. It’s weird because Bears view of love at the time of the wish shifted based on the situation surrounding the wish.
Nikki feeds bear the cat because that was what Bear attempted to use to establish the foundation of their love, and therefore Evil Nikki feels it as the literal foundation, while Bear obviously doesn’t.
Sarah was gonna say what Ian and Nikki did but didn’t when her dad interrupted. Bear was there for Sarah, so it’s an inversion of his traditional mechanic of seeking love. If given more time, Bear and Sarah’s love would’ve blossomed because it wasn’t based on self-pity, but rather one of mutual respect.
Bear eating the cat is where he should’ve realized that shit was fucked beyond physical comprehension. He should’ve reached out to his friends for help, but didn’t because he wanted to hold on to the fantasy that had already broken.
He used aversion in his argument with Ian, same as the whole group does.
He treats Evil Nikki like a trainable pet once it steps out of line with his vision. This is when he truly makes the realization that the wish has physically altered her, but his cowardice and self-deprecation prevents him from seeking help to change the wish, because he feels it to be a negative reflection on himself. The wish is bad not because of what he did, but because of who he is as a person, and he can’t stomach that thought. It would shatter his personal view as the “nice guy” and he refuses to acknowledge that he’s the issue, but that the wish itself is the problem.
He hangs up the phone when given a chance yo talk to Nikki, further reflecting how he can’t come to terms with his actions and the reality of his situation.
Evil Nikki feels the separation as a representative of a lack of love, because that was his view when he made the wish.
The poem represents how Bear forced Nikki through the wish, and how Nikki viewed Bear as a brother and how that view physically contorted when he made the wish, into a sort of incest-driven mentality. Branch of the willow tree is a direct reference as to how the love is driven by victim-perpetrator mentality.
He’s trying to talk to the real Nikki, and he’s trying to talk to her, because he doesn’t care for the real Nikki, just that he’s good enough to feel loved, but his actions show that his self view is so negative that he doesn’t care for her, but that he cares that she loves her.
When Evil Nikki realizes she’s losing her grip on Bear, she uses his original strategy to regain it, ultimate self-pity. She talks about letting go, because her original self is slipping away, only to leave a husk that is the wish, but the person has already gone.
Bear is in denial that the fantasy wasn’t real, and that he isn’t the nice guy he professes to be. This is where he solidified himself as the villain in the movie. He doesn’t attempt to help her whatsoever, or work anything out, he remains shut off and views the wish as a blemish on himself, rather than a true mistake. He can’t stomach that the wish means he’s not a nice guy, but that he’s actually evil and depriving her of her autonomy.
In the car, Bear realizes he loves Sarah instead. When he says, like you. And she’s dead and Bear does nothing… When he sees himself in the mirror, he realizes it all starts with him, and that his cowardice killed a person.
The one chance Bear gets, he flakes, indicating how even to the end, he can’t be truly courageous.