Obsession (2025)

MAY 14, 2026

GENRE: THRILLER
SOURCE: THEATRICAL (REGULAR SCREENING)

Focus paid $15m for Obsession (which only cost about a million to make), so I assume they are betting that it’ll be a decent sized hit. And if so, that means that the crowds will almost certainly include a few misguided young (and not so young) men who will see absolutely nothing wrong with what the lead character does, and probably think “Sucks that this guy had to resort to making a wish just so that ungrateful b---- would see how good he was for her.” (We call these guys incels, just to be clear.) I would love to read their reviews.

But for now you’re reading mine, and I am here to tell you that this is a solid, if imperfect genre film that once again proves (as Jordan Peele and Zach Cregger have done to even greater extent) that comedians are really, really good at coming up with outside the box horror movies, even more impressive when you consider that at its core, Obsession is merely another "Monkey’s Paw" variant. A shy, mumbly guy ironically named Bear (Michael Johnston) is hopelessly in love with Nikki (Inde Navarrette) his coworker at a music shop, and can’t gather the courage to ask her out, even when she asks him point blank if he likes her (he denies it, the coward). So he does the next best thing, making a wish on a toy shop novelty item called a One Wish Willow, only to be surprised and then increasingly horrified when the wish comes true.

His wish, specifically, is “I wish Nikki would love me more than anyone else in the world,” setting up the poor phrasing that tends to be the undoing of anyone who makes these sort of genie/wishbone/penny in a fountain kind of movie wishes. Because by loving him more than "anyone else in the world” he inadvertently (we hope?) includes herself in that mix, and quickly realizes that she is now so attached to him that she has no agency of her own. At first he's a bit freaked out at her sudden change of tune, but then she insists to come over and they kiss a little, and then via montage we see that she practically moves in right away, and they do lots of cutesy things together in what looks like the montage from any romcom. But as we quickly learn, she also can’t function without him. Even a trip to the bathroom causes her to freak out, sounding like a dying tape recorder as she scream/shouts “Why don’t you looooove meeeee” kind of desperate pleas. In one terrifying/sad moment (which Navarrette nails; she is almost supernaturally good at the sudden physical/vocal shifts her character needs to take) he goes to work on her day off and she just stands motionless, wetting herself (and worse), unable to do anything until he returns.

It covers some of the same ground as Companion, actually, but with one key difference: the entire movie unfolds through Bear’s perspective. In fact we know almost nothing about Nikki, or her friendship with Bear prior to the film’s events. Mostly through inference we can tell a few things: she’s probably aware of his feelings but does not share them (early on he offers to buy her a drink and she quickly covers it herself), and also feels stuck, wanting to quit her job so she can focus on something she feels more passionate about (only for her well meaning but clueless Romeo to make her even more stuck than she already was). And Bear doesn't fill in those blanks; when his friend Ian asks why he "loves" her so much, he says "She's beautiful..." and then trails off before he can name another trait. It's a telling aspect to the script, and something that'll probably be lost on the MRA dorks in the crowd.

It’s also clear that his feelings keeps him from having the same kind of easy rapport with her that he has with the other two people he works with, Ian and cool girl Sarah, who we learn has her own crush on Bear himself. It’s not that he’s an awkward guy *all the time*, he just gets that way around her. It’s one of the story’s great ironies that he inadvertently makes her lose herself when he makes his wish, because he essentially loses *himself* around her to begin with. In the movie’s first five minutes his cat dies, which understandably upsets him, but he is unable to even tell her as much when she calls later asking about when he’s getting to their weekly trivia game. At first he lies about why he’s not going (saying he's busy with work instead of just admitting he’s upset about his cat) and then he goes anyway, despite not wanting to.

He is able to tell Sarah easily though, so you might wonder why he doesn’t just date her, if you’re still not getting the point. You can’t control how you feel (or don’t feel) about someone any more than you can control how they feel about you in return. Take away the silly “I made a wish” premise and you’re left with the answer to “What happens when you get what you wanted from someone who didn’t actually want it back?” Again, we don’t see much of the story from Nikki’s perspective, but on occasion her actual feelings come to the surface and she understandably freaks out, only to snap back to the lovesick version he wished for. You know when you’re starting to fall asleep and you have a thought that doesn’t make any sense at all and came out of nowhere, and you then kind of wake up and go “Wait what the hell was that?” Well that’s basically what Nikki is like throughout the film, only it’s inverted; her momentary “dream brain” is actually the real her, struggling to get back out only for the one controlled by the wish stick to take over again. It’s heartbreaking and terrifying to watch, and a sex scene where she lies there motionless (and he doesn't seem to notice/care) is the moment where you should realize that, despite his nice guy, puppy dog crush on her, he ultimately doesn't really give a crap about her feelings. Hell, even the stupid willow stick was supposed to be a gift for her, only for him to use it himself, the jerk.

Ultimately, the only reason he seems to be aware he did something wrong is because she starts acting scary and upsetting him. She watches him sleep, moves in a jerky, robotic pattern when stressed, and… well, without spoiling things, the movie’s R rating is well earned with a terrifying (yes, I actually jumped) attack scene that reportedly had the MPAA in an ‘80s style “Cut this back a bit or you’re getting an NC-17” tizzy. Writer/director Curry Barker did a great job with his script, letting us uncomfortably sympathize with Bear at first and gradually turn on him as he keeps merely hoping she will settle into her new role instead of recognizing how hard she is fighting it. I’m sure everyone in the audience (myself included) has had a "I wish they liked me back" thought on a birthday candle or when the clock struck 11:11, because, well, why not? The worst that can happen is nothing changes, right? The movie isn’t demonizing people who have unrequited desires, it’s just deftly (and occasionally, violently) explaining why it’s a thoughtless thing to do. Stick to wishing to win the lottery!

Barker is less effective as an editor, however. There’s a baffling moment where Bear tries to explain to Sarah that Nikki’s change in behavior is due to her dad being sick, but Sarah already knows that the man is fine (and Bear knows she knows that, on top of it?). And at one point a character doesn’t believe that the Wish Willow is real and, in jest, wishes for a billion dollars, which promptly begin to rain down on both him and Bear. It’s a good sight gag, but later the character tells Bear “Hey it worked, I have a billion dollars!” as if Bear wasn’t there when it happened? It’s also occasionally hard to tell how much time has passed; the love montage suggests they have now been together for a while but the other characters react as if it’s only been like a day or two. Nothing deal breaking, but definitely had me scratching my head more than once.

Otherwise it’s kind of a knockout, and I’m glad I put up with seeing it with a Thursday night crowd (not sure if it’s the same everywhere, but around here they tend to be the worst) to get to it before anything got spoiled. Barker has been saying some dumb stuff about Texas Chainsaw Massacre (he has been hired to be the, what, 7th guy to “go back to the first one” with yet another reboot) but he has already shot another movie, so hopefully that one is of equal value and I can give him the benefit of the doubt for whatever he’s doing with Leatherface (not like the bar is set high for that franchise, as there hasn’t been a good one in 20 years). And I say that even though I'm still embarrassed about the little yelp I made during the aforementioned attack scene!

What say you?

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