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 (072226)
There are a few signs of box-office renewal that indicate the motion picture
theatre business cannot be counted out just yet. There have been two recent
films that have become massive surprise hits. Both Borders and Obsession were
made on comparatively low budgets and each was released with limited publicity. But
they have been beating out most higher-profile releases, and they dominated the
box office for weeks.
Many of the viewers who are going to see Borders and Obsession, which have
unknown directors and no big stars, were twenty-something's who usually stream
their films. This is a great sign that there is a future in films and that
alternatives to sequels, remakes, and franchise films can be highly profitable.
Obsession was made for only $750,000, and so far, it has grossed over $442
million. In contrast, the massively hyped Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu
cost over $165 million to produce and has made 344 million dollars. Obsession
has a much more desirable cost to profitable ratio than Mandalorian, especially when you factor in the budget and publicity
for both films.
Obsession is not particularly original, and it basically is a retread of the
devil’s bargain story or an update of Faust or Bedazzled. The film also bears
some similarity to the Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode, “The Wish,” in which
the romantically unlucky Xander uses a supernatural totem to make a wish to
make himself irresistible to women. IIn these stories, someone makes a deal with a supernatural being and is granted
one or more wishes, but the wishes are delivered in a way that leaves the person
deeply unhappy-be careful what you wish for. The only difference here is
that the protagonist never meets a demon; he merely makes the wish using a
magical object. But the concept has rarely been done this well.
Curry Barker is a little-known 26-year-old filmmaker who made a series of
YouTube shorts before graduating to the found-footage film Milk and Serial
(2024). Just from Obsession, you can tell he is a resourceful, economical, and
efficient filmmaker, unusually skilled at orchestrating fright scenes and
building suspense. Barker adds many twists and unexpected bits of character
interplay that fill out the story and greatly elevate the film.
Obsession is filled with bright, fresh, and lively performances. Michael Johnson
is reliable and steady in the role of Bear, and his character swiftly shifts
from a quasi-likable protagonist to a despicable villain. He basically serves
as a straight man for the wigged-out antics of his romantic partner, Nikki (Inde
Navarette). Johnson appeared as Corey Bryant in the MTV series Teen Wolf
(2015-2017), and she shows outstanding potential here,
Inde Navarette’s performance in the film is astonishingly well done and
positively electrifying, with unexpected jarring highs and lows. Of all the
female performances this year, this one impressed and impacted me the most.
Watching her is like spending an hour and a half on a great roller coaster
ride. Inde is best known to comic fans for playing Sarah Cushing on Superman &
Lois (2021–2024).
The rest of the supporting cast is also more than impressive. Cooper Tomlinson
is best known for his previous collaboration with Cully Baker in Milk and Cereal
(2024). Here he plays Bear’s manipulative, not always trustworthy friend. Megan
Lawless, who was in The Hate U Give (2018), plays another potential love
interest to Bear, who, in most ways, would be a better romantic choice than
Nikki. Andy Richter, who is hard to recognize here, also shines here in a fun
supporting role. He was previously perfect in the role of Conan O' Brien’s
sidekick on NBC's Late Night, The Tonight Show, and Conan on TBS. He was also
the star of the short-lived Fox television series Andy Richter Controls the
Universe (2003).
In Obsession, Bear (Michael Johnston) is hopelessly smitten with his work friend
Nikki (Inde Navarrette). But they work together at a video store, and she plans
to quit, so he might not see her much in the future. We are very sympathetic
towards him initially because he is very lonely and isolated, and he recently
lost both his cat and grandmother.
After he drives her home, Bear and Nikki have a heartfelt conversation. She
seems to suspect how he feels about her, and she probes him about it. He gets a
chance to man up and proclaim his love, but he blows it because he prefers
keeping things as they are rather than risk rocking the boat and perhaps losing
her completely.
Bear uses a magic piece from a gift shop called a One Wish Willow to wish that
Nikki will “love him more than anything else in the world.” He notices a change
in her behavior almost immediately, and they end up talking most of the night,
and they have intercourse. But he is not sure if this is because of the wish or
because she had taken recreational drugs, or perhaps she had a change of heart.
Bear had previously been fairly likable and the film’s protagonist , but when he
sleeps with Nikki, it’s as if she has been given a roofie, so the scene has an
unpleasant whiff of date rape sex.
From then on, Nikki only thinks of him, but the intensity of her obsessive
infatuation makes her commit weird, unpredictable, and dangerous actions. She
first makes a shrine dedicated to his recently deceased cat and eventually,
without his knowledge, even serves the cat to him as dinner. She also tapes the
house exit shut so he will not leave her, and she savagely beats a potential
rival love interest.
Their immediate friends Ian (Cooper Tomlinson) and Sarah (Megan Lawless)
interact with the new Nikki/Bear couple at a party and notice that she is acting
irrationally and not like herself. In one of the weirdest and most effective
sequences, she recites from a Hansel and Gretel text she is writing with long,
disturbing passages that hint at incest. The friends also think that nothing
about the new relationship adds up. Before Bear and Nikki got together, Nikki
was having a fling with Ian, and she told several people that she only thought
of Bear as a brother.
The cinematographer, Taylor Clemmons, demonstrates his mastery of the medium
through clever visual tricks. Nikki is sometimes shot so that her face is
obscured or invisible in the shadows. This hints that she is largely absent, but
the real Nikki is still hidden somewhere within the fake one, and the new one
is, at best, an inferior, imperfect simulation or an imperfect copy of a real
woman, lacking her humanity. She’s like an AI simulation of Nikki, lacking her
essence and humanity. At one point, when she is half asleep, Nikki tells him,
“I’ve never been with you, Bear.” At another point, Nikki pathetically pleads,
“She’s asleep. Please kill me. It’s me.”
The whole cast and crew are worthy of praise, particularly the lead actress and
director/writer, Curry Barker. Both are bursting with potential and obviously
have promising futures ahead in the horror genre.
Barker has taken a limited subject and minuscule budget and created one of the
scariest and most disturbing films of the year. It even compares well with such
recent instant classics as Get Out (2017), Hereditary (2018),
Midsommer
(2019),
The Substance
(2024), and
Sinners
(2025). This film was strong enough to be on
my recent top 10 best films of the year so far list, and it was by far the best
horror film I have seen this year.
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