It seems like the world has become obsessed with the new indie horror film, Obsession. It’s the gruesome brainchild of writer/director Curry Barker, a 26-year-old debut filmmaker best known for sketch comedy on his YouTube channel, That’s a Bad Idea. With RackaRacka’s Talk to Me, Chris Stuckmann’s Shelby Oaks, Mark Iplier’s Ironlung, and now Barker’s Obsession, it appears we’re heading into a renaissance of YouTube creators blossoming as indie horror mavens, and this is days away from 20-year-old Kane Parsons’ release of Backrooms, a feature based on his experimental liminal nightmare YouTube video. It’s probably inevitable for Mr. Beast to eventually make a horror movie, isn’t it? That’s scary.

Baron “Bear” Bailey (Michael Johnston) has been nursing a crush on his friend and co-worker Nikki (Inde Navarrette) for years. He’s never had the courage to just tell her how he feels.Then one night Nikki just point-blank asks him: do you have feelings for me? He stammers and says, “I think we’re good as friends.” Immediately afterwards in his humiliation, he breaks a novelty One Wish Willow stick and says, “I wish Nikki loved me more than anyone in the world.” From that moment forward, Nikki changes. She’s ferociously devoted to Bear and incredibly needy and volatile. She takes clingy to another level.

We’ve seen plenty of iterations of the “be careful what you wish for” tale of horror and irony, but Barker makes it his own with such confidence. There’s a prevailing sense of dread throughout the movie that just sits in your gut, miring every post-wish scene in discomfort. It can be greatly entertaining to anticipate just how things will go wrong with each scene. Barker demonstrates a tremendous sense of restraint and dedication, favoring to tease out the audience discomfort. I appreciate how much of the movie’s focus is on building unease over jump scares. There are moments where Barker’s camera forces you to study Nikki’s face draped in shadows as she stands upright in a corner, and it’s far more unsettling than if she had just popped around a corner to startle the audience. There’s a certain dark enjoyment to watching a character get in over their head, especially when they have robbed another character of agency, the whole reaping the consequences of their actions. Watching Bear get punished is a sort of cosmic reward as well as a test to see how far he will go to try and make this “relationship” work. Barker’s background in comedy is evident through his skill with pacing scenes and  as a whole, and the film benefits from the mordant tone often dipping into cringe comedy and nervous laughter. This man clearly has an affinity for horror and the chops to make a compelling movie connect with an audience and leave a mark.

Obsession wouldn’t be nearly as worthy of obsession without the captivating and shifty lead performance of Navarette (Superman & Lois). I initially thought it was a mistake we see so little of the Before Wish Nikki, but limiting our exposure means we’re trapped in defining Nikki through Bear’s perceptions and projections, and I think that’s smart. The majority of her performance is after the wish, and Navarrette is just as terrifying as she is unexpectedly hilarious. She contorts her face into exaggerated, almost Jim Carrey-esque expressions. When she’s trying to be the blithely happy girlfriend, she scrunches her face into a pained smile that approaches a grimace, a mockery of how women might be expected to look when given the unhelpful advice to smile more. Her juvenile meltdowns and tantrums remind us that Nikki has degenerated into a sickening distortion. Navarratte’s performance has layers to it, finding little physical tricks to cue us about the Nikki imprisoned inside her own body. It’s amazing the flickers of “help me” she can manifest through her eyes alone while the rest of her face is pretending to be a different person. Some of the greatest acting performances of our modern era come from overlooked actresses in unfairly underrated horror movies. In a just universe, Florence Pugh would have been nominated for an Oscar for 2019’s Midsommar, Naomi Scott would have been nominated for 2024’s Smile 2, Sophie Thatcher would have been nominated for 2025’s Companion, and Inde Navarrette would be nominated for Obsession.

Obsession has such a great premise and direction, which is why it’s a shame that there are plot turns that feel disconnected from the rules and characterization Barker has established. Having a super obsessive significant other leads to obvious disadvantages, like being dangerously possessive, paranoid, and losing one’s sense of having an independent identity. Having Nikki make awkward scenes in public, test her partner’s love and devotion, and get easily jealous to the point of madness all makes sense as an extreme encapsulation of Bear’s wish for unparalleled love. Having Nikki stand literally in place for hours and wait for Bear to return from work, to the point that she even pees down her own legs, is quite effective at communicating just how much this woman is losing herself under this spell. Those decisions refine and perfectly demonstrate the disturbing outcomes of Bear’s wish. However, not all of her decision-making has this same identifiable logic. Early in the film, Bear’s cat dies from ingesting a bunch of his prescription drugs. How the cat got into the medicine cabinet or broke the child-proof seal without thumbs is never fully explained except for the implicit assumption that Bear had his pill bottles open and accessible (this guy really shouldn’t be trusted with anyone’s care, human or animal). Afterwards, when Nikki is fully under the wish’s evil power, she does two things with this dead cat. The first might be explained as a means of memorializing the pet, but the second one is just inexplicable and feels more like a cruel prank. It’s hard for me to connect this action to the film’s extension of obsessive love. It broke me from the movie, the same as when during a party game, Nikki recites a twisted retelling of Hansel and Gretel that devolves into incestuous role play. Does she think this little performance will impress Bear? If she’s purposely trying to just be oft-putting to the others, why even indulge the game? The problem for me is that Obsession has just enough of these questionable little turns that felt outside the bounds of its rules. The impulsive self-harm as misguided devotion or flagrant emotional manipulation makes sense. Looming over Bear while he sleeps to watch can even make sense. But not every crazy action has the same logic. Now, you could just wave away every crazy act as, “Well, it’s unexplainable magic,” but I find that an unsatisfying excuse for plot developments that feel more arbitrary than organic extensions.

The other area that nagged at me was the ending and how I felt it conflicts with not just the characterization of our protagonist but also the social commentary against Bear. In order to really delve into this, I’ll have to invoke spoilers, so skip ahead TWO paragraphs dear reader if you wish to remain pure. Earlier, when Bear is on the phone with the One Wish Willow customer support, a fabulous scene by the by, we learn that the wish will remain in gruesome effect until either the recipient or the wish-maker is deceased. Barker has set up the possibility for ending this nightmare but it involves permanent death. Late in the film, the “real Nikki” manages to speak to Bear while Nikki sleeps, like a ventriloquist voice sneaking out undetected. In this fleeting moment of communication, she begs for death to end her torment. Bear is aghast at the request but he’s also offended; would a romance with Bear be so intolerable to prefer death? That’s because Bear is a bad person. He shrouds himself in the armor of being the unassuming “nice guy” and yet his ensuing behavior seems far more selfish and entitled. It’s evident to everyone who knows Nikki that, post-wish, this version of her is not the real Nikki. She’s a completely different person. They’re justifiably worried. It’s purposely incredulous for Bear to think that Nikki has just come around and her sudden and very intense fixation is her genuine choice. He’s not that stupid. However, this Nikki is a scary, crazed cartoon version, with her personality, humor, and ambition hollowed out. For all intents and purposes, it’s like Bear has lobotomized his crush. He takes his time before getting physically intimate with her despite her begging, but it still doesn’t stop him. He finally got the girl and he doesn’t want to let go of her even if it means trapping her in a unique hell.

Now, after some unfortunate and bloody consequences, Bear locks himself in his bathroom with the determination to finally take account and end his life. He thinks about putting a gun in his mouth but doesn’t have the resolve for that. Instead, he takes the same prescription drugs his cat overdosed on and swallows the bottle’s contents. From everything I’ve witnessed of this character, I do not believe he would be the kind of person who would accept accountability and sacrifice himself. He’s too selfish and cowardly. He’s also just too meek and incapable of making hard choices. I could believe him wanting to be brave and noble and make the sacrifice to save Nikki but then, after swallowing the pills, he immediately regrets this decision and throws them up. I don’t buy Bear learning from his grave error. I can believe him having to live with it and being consumed by guilt, and yet he’ll grow numb and accept his new normal eventually, with the guilt likely leveling out over time. The pointed commentary is against the toxic entitlement that men feel in possession of women, especially those denigrating being “friend-zoned” as if platonic friendship is itself a worthless compensatory prize from a woman. It’s sizing up guys like Bear who think of themselves as the guy who just wants a break from the universe who also happens to be completely ignorant to those other opportunities within reach. He’s too fixated on what he doesn’t have to the point that it’s become his identity. He wouldn’t know what to do with Nikki if he got her, which is evident by the rest of the movie. God help this guy if he actually decided to work on himself or calibrate his insecurities and projections. This guy sucks and that’s the point. Horror movies typically end with a would-be solution to the dilemma that proves false, ultimately dooming the protagonist to misery. For Obsession to revive the real Nikki through Bear’s ultimate sacrifice feels completely wrong. It’s giving this loser character a chance at unearned redemption as well as harming its critical message.

While not quite living up to its momentous hype, Obsession is still an unnerving and memorably uncomfortable film experience, from its compounding dread, to its macabre laughs, to its provocative performances, chiefly our chief victim. I have some issues with the iffy internal logic too often feeling arbitrary, and the ending feels both rushed and wrong, sabotaging the larger commentary against men like our self-pitying protagonist. Some might complain that much of the movie could have been resolved had the four main characters just had one honest conversation, but that’s what makes the movie tragic. We see the many detours that could have avoided the worst. I know the majority of my review is me assessing my gripes, but Obsession is a good and very disquieting movie. I just felt like it could have been a great film. Still, this is quite a promising debut for Barker, who has now been tapped by A24 to remake none other than The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. While I might not be as smitten, Obsession is a creepy and entertaining modern update on an old cautionary adage.

Nate’s Grade: B