Obsession

*“Just Because You Chose This For Her Doesn’t Make It Less Real…” * Fucking hell… After his hugely successful and terrifying 2024 found footage Horror debut 'Milk and Serial' Curry Barker comes right the fuck out of nowhere and delivers the best film of the year with his sophomore directorial effort and first theatrical release, the Blumhouse distributed 'OBSESSION'. A deeply disquieting, heart-shattering, skin-crawling, fucking terrifying modern horror masterwork thats bursting at the seams with commentary on toxic masculinity, female objectification, sexism, victim blaming, sa culture and what all happens when those worlds collide. 'OBSESSION' will take you on a huge rollercoaster of emotions, and at times, have you desperately 'wishing' you could look away, and it’s only further elevated by a fully game Inde Navarrette who brings us one of the best performances I’ve ever seen as our protagonist Nikki, full stop, and I’ll just say it with my whole chest. This should, and will gain the attention it deserves as one of the best horror films to ever do it. The stigmatization levied at YouTubers who are currently breaking into the film industry is pretty baffling, and it’s gotten to the point where it’s genuinely beginning to piss me off. People like Kane Parsons, The Philippou Brothers, Radio Silence, Markiplier, and now Curry Barker have all been faced with intense scrutiny simply because they got their start using the video sharing platform to express themselves creatively, uploading skits, short films, series, the works. Now, I understand that most of said scrutiny comes from places like Reddit and twitter, but it’s now unfortunately beginning to bleed into the general consensus of the modern moviegoing audience. I won’t say that I flat out don’t understand the worry people have when it comes to YouTubers making actual movies, but I will say that I am entitled to immediately deem you stupid if you attempt to criticize a production you haven’t experienced yourself, and attempt to criticize the filmmaker behind it despite them proving through past projects, whether it be on YouTube or not, that they know exactly what the fuck they’re doing, and are genuinely phenomenal at it. What makes this conversation even more infuriating is the blatant truth of the matter. The names I dropped are putting out some of the best shit in the genre right now (minus Markiplier. I didn’t love iron lung, but at least it had the dignity to be creative.) and genuinely have yet to disappoint. The Philippous made two of the best cinematic explorations of grief, period. Kane’s backrooms series on YouTube is phenomenal and the movie is basically set up to follow suit. Radio Silence got their start as a short lived yt channel and then blossomed their careers into a number of crowd pleasing big budget horror films and delivered the two best scream movies in that franchise, sorry not sorry. And now Curry Barker gives us something so unique, so genuinely scary, so fucking spectacular, whole-hog one of the best films in the genre, and people are still saying he should “stay in his lane”. It’s so upsetting. It’d be funny if it didn’t piss me off so much. My sincere apologies for the tirade, but it’s become something that I need to give my two cents on considering how everything seems to be playing out nowadays, and the context is obviously necessary when addressing the most bare bones fact that this film does exist and was made by Curry Barker. But anyway, onto something more positive: 'OBSESSION' is indie to the very bone. With an air tight shooting schedule of 20 days, and an even tighter budget of around 750k, it’s insane to me that this movie even got to us in the first place. And with all of those restrictions it’s even more fucking insane that it’s as genuinely phenomenal as it is, I don’t exaggerate when I say this is a perfect movie; and i think i can confidently say that one of the many big reasons this film succeeds as much as it does isnt just due to the remarkable script and premise, but as well as the absolutely outstanding cast of mostly unknowns that Curry pulls together here. The talent onscreen throughout the film is absolutely undeniable and everyone here is giving their all to the characters, which expertley serves to further define an air and atmosphere of striking realism and believability; adding to every aspect of the film in a way I haven’t ever really seen before. Michael Johnston (who may be the most known member of the cast due to his time on Teen Wolf) delivers a career defining performance as the film’s main character, Bear. By its very nature, it’s a hard performance to define, because Bear is a difficult character to define. He’s limited, he struggles socially, he’s perpetually insecure, and on top of all of that, he has an obsessive crush on one of his friends that would’ve eventually imploded into something horrible even without the Willow in the equation. Like the film around him, you never know where the character will go or what he’ll do, and the same can be said with Johnston’s performance. It really is phenomenal stuff. Megan Lawless is also here giving a pretty understated and nuanced performance as Sarah, Bears best friend, but one that’s equally as impressive as Johnston’s. Sarah is very much a side character, but she sorta serves an incredibly integral role in the film and the messages it delivers. She’s certainly there to re-enforce them. Which she does quite expertly, and we’ll get into that a little later… but, and I’m sure you were waiting for this, there is one person here who is on a different level of excellence with her performance, and that is none other than Inde motherfucking Navarrette, who plays our 'protagonist'/final girl Nikki, and delivers one of the greatest performances I’ve ever had the pleasure of watching. This film demands a ton from her, and her ability to harness those steep requirements as a strength of her performance rather than being intimidated by it is astounding. Inde plays around a lot with the dichotomy of the two Nikki’s we get to see throughout the film, and how she seamlessly mashes them together, and pulls them apart again. Even when she’s Freaky Nikki posessed by Bear’s Wish, you can so clearly and obviously see the genuinely scared and trapped person on the inside, and though we spend most of our time with the Wish possessed version of her, we still get moments of the real Nikki popping out like an intrusive thought or some kind of tick. Especially in what might be the most surreal and overtly scary scene in the film where she’s standing in the corner of Bear’s bedroom and whispering to him that she doesn’t want to sleep because she doesn’t like her dreams. I interpreted her dreams as the only way Nikki could really exist in her own body while it was possessed by the wish Bear made. Which is later backed up when she quietly pleads to Bear to put her out of her misery as her Body is sleeping later in the film; which I’ll unpack in a little bit. 'OBSESSION' deals with a lot, and doesn’t skimp on any of the dark corners of the topics it’s discussing simply for the audience’s sake and comfort. This is a dark, and sad movie, and ultimately just an extremely tragic tale about a woman who is completely stripped of her autonomy by a “nice guy” just so he can fulfill his fantasy. Nikki is not the obsessor, she is the obsessee. Barker’s script really resonated with me because he goes in the exact opposite direction of where most writers would choose to go. His biggest concern and focus here is the importance of Nikki’s portrayal as a victim to Bear’s horrifying behavior and despicable selfish actions. And it’s not like this is subtextual, throughout the film, despite the characters outside of Bear not knowing the magical fuckery that’s occurring, most of them point out that he is blatantly taking advantage of her. Even Nikki outright says he’s taking advantage of her. But Bear still continues to use her like a sentient sex-doll, and his only problem with the situation arises when he gets upset that she isn’t acting like this fantasy version of her he’s had in his head, and calls a customer support hotline to alter his wish, complaining about her like she’s a faulty product. Saying that it’s effecting him in a bad way, not even taking a minute to consider what he has done to her. It’s so sad, and so sickening, and again, magical fuckery aside, all too real. Again, I’d just like to take a minute to shoutout Michael Johnston and his performance. Inde is absolutely the scene stealing Star here, but Johnston delivers a pretty low-key and subtle performance as your stereotypical cliché “nice-guy”. Johnston is given the difficult task of holding onto the sympathy of the audience even as Bear becomes fully aware of exactly what his wish is doing to Nikki. And its pretty obvious that Bear does genuinely start out as the basic good guy. but his superficial fear of being rejected by Nikki, and potentially ruining a friendship he values more than anything in the world, eventually gives way to revealing a deep rooted and thorough rot that had been brewing inside of him for a long time. It’s a hard evolution to watch as he goes from underdog hero to the antagonist. Similarly to Michael, I really just can’t stress enough about how phenomenal Inde is here as Nikki. The way she’s able to reflect these themes in her performance is astounding, especially in the sudden moments wherein Nikki is able to regain control of her body and freaks out, or tries to communicate to anyone that’s listening so she can get help, or tries to kill herself to end her suffering. One of the best examples I could give of Nikki’s attempts at communication in the film through her body that she no longer has control over is an incredibly uncomfortable excerpt from a book she’d been working on that she’s dared to read at a party about midway through the film: an incestuous spin on Hansel and Gretel. The monologue she reads from the perspective of Gretel reflects how Nikki always viewed Bear as a little brother. How she loved him like family, but through his wish “Love Only The Branch Of A Willow Tree Could Conjure” he stripped her of any choice and forced her into a “relationship” and position of an obedient sex-doll who’s sole purpose was to lust and be lusted after that she never wanted and was never comfortable with. There’s a hard cut after the restaurant scene earlier in the film that broke my heart, and was one of the only times in the movie, or any movie for that matter, wherein I had to genuinely look away for fear of actually breaking down. Nikki is making noises of intense pleasure underneath Bear as they have sex, but Bear’s face is turned away from hers, and she peaks out from under his shoulder, staring blankly into the distance crying, looking like she’s so scared, and in so much pain. Suggesting that if she herself (Wish Nikki) isn’t being perceived, does she even really exist? Nikki is a prisoner inside her own body. As I mentioned previously, there are fleeting moments where the real Nikki bursts out of her own body like a sudden shiver or uncontrollable intrusive thought, trying to get help, or trying to end her life, but she’s eventually swallowed time and time again by Bear’s wish. There’s a moment in the final third of the film, that’s the last time we really see the real Nikki before the ending. After all of her options have been exhausted, she makes one last desperate plea to Bear, not the Bear who’s put her through all of this, but to the Bear she had thought was her friend, someone who she believed genuinely cared about her —Navarrette’s tone and volume here perfectly reflects Nikki’s completely shattered spirit, as she asks him to kill her and end her suffering as her possessed self and shell of a body lie sleeping on Bear’s bed. To this request he responds by asking her “What’s So Bad About Being With Me?”, and she retorts with the truth. “I’ve Never Been With You, Bear.” Now, To further explore my opinion of Sarah I had vaguely stated earlier: the character of Sarah is essentially the personification of this film and its themes, which is of course reflected in the way Megan Lawless plays her. She’s Bear’s best friend, and genuinely does have a romantic interest in him that he, whether he knows it or not, reciprocates pretty obviously. At an earlier stage in the film, before the willow is broken, Nikki and Bear share a scene in Bear’s car as he drives her home from the bar in which they are pretty open and honest with each other about how much their friendship means to them respectively. That Scene, and the character of Sarah are there to re-enforce the fact that none of what Bear does to Nikki ever needed to happen. The good ending could’ve been achieved had he just accepted that Nikki was one of his most valued friends and he went out with Sarah. Later in the film after Nikki has killed Sarah in an absolutely diabolical scene, the next time we see her after she’s disposed of the body, she’s wearing Sarah’s clothes, and has even carved Sarah’s tattoos into her skin, and she desperately screams at Bear, asking why he doesn’t love her. Because the wish possessed Nikki reflects his attractions and thoughts to the nth degree, she tries to morph into the person Bear I suppose subconsciously was “in love with” the whole time to simply feel seen. Again dude, it’s just torturously sad. It takes all of that to make Bear realize he cant let his Wish torture Nikki any longer. So he finally decides to do something that benefits her and decides to kill himself in order to save her. It’s his first, and only act of altruism. And somehow it makes you hate him EVEN MORE because it took him this long to realize that what he was doing to her wasn’t okay. He locks himself in the bathroom and dumps a fuckton of pills down his throat right before Nikki uses a spare willow to make a reverse of the wish Bear made that kickstarted all of this in the first place, because despite the fact that Wish Nikki isn’t really Nikki, it’s still a version of her that wants to be loved and seen. Bear stands up from his seat on the edge of the bathtub, and walks out of the bathroom to a smiling Nikki and for the first time in the film we see the two of them lovingly embrace and look at each other like real people in love. Which only goes to re-enforce the idea that Bear didn’t love Nikki. He loved the idea of someone like her that would submit to him. The fact that she had to wish for his genuine affection and that there was such a sudden change in him when the willow was broken is just further, heart-shattering proof of that. He eventually overdoses in her arms, and Nikki comes back to herself. She begins hysterically sobbing as she takes in the scene around her, reacting to her physical and mental agony, and what she’s gone through as *“Forever” by The Little Dippers *plays us out. Typically before closing out the review I’d have a little section here discussing my criticisms, or things that I felt didn’t quite work, but this is one of those movies where I walked out, and even now writing this can’t think of a single thing I didn’t like about it. It was perfect. And I can’t really say much more than that. Curry Barker’s 'OBSESSION' is a no holds barred look into Toxic Masculinity, Female Objectification, and Rape Culture that deeply resonated with me and wonderfully has resonated with so many others. It’s hard to watch, in both good and bad ways, but despite its heavy subtext, Barker and the Cast never let the film stop being entertaining. Inde Navarrette and Michael Johnston both give all timer performances, especially Inde, that likely won’t be rivaled in the genre or in general for a long time to come. 'OBSESSION’ is cinema in its highest form, and only reaffirms my love for Horror even more. This is one I can absolutely tell will only get better with time. Inde Navarrette, that Oscar will be yours.