Obsession is a psychological horror which truly lives up to its genre in every sense. If the film has a thesis, it would be this: be careful what you wish for.
It uses exactly this premise to spark conversations around underlying themes such as male fear, the desperation to be loved, and the impossible standard women are held to for how they should act when in love. There is not a moment that leaves the audience feeling settled, and right when you expect the worst, it cuts you with laughter. The film treats the idea of love exactly how the younger generation experiences it; something that messes with your head, keeps you on your toes, and has you oscillating between euphoria and apprehension.
Director and screenwriter Curry Barker's understanding of the emotional and psychological depths of the characters is truly remarkable, and Michael Johnson as Bear and Inde Navarrette as Nikki are both outstanding. The moral horror begins when Bear can’t find the courage to confess his feelings to Nikki, and after several failed attempts, he turns to a One Wish Willow he finds at a crystal shop. While the cashier warns him that customers have returned with complains about it, Bear buys it anyway. Moments later, when he is handed the perfect opportunity to confess his feelings to Nikki, he fails again.
Flustered, he snaps the wooden stick in half, wishing for Nikki to love him the most, and this is when the literal horror starts; not just in the jump scares and sounds, but also the body language, and intentional use of light and shadows.
The character introductions and dynamics add to the film’s progression. Bear is shy, awkward, and painfully in love, while Nikki is more loose, relaxed, and fun; a duo that would usually, and as per what is conventionally shown in reality, make for the ideal couple. But perhaps, it is Barker’s decision to give this a horror twist that pushes audiences to realise that such a dynamic shouldn’t always be idealised either.
Barker takes something universally felt but rarely rationalised; he challenges the idea of what today’s younger generation considers falling in love, and how one must act when in the thick of it — especially the woman. Apart from an estimate of their age, the audience is only given a faint idea of the characters’ traumas, family details, pasts, or aspirations; basically just what is needed in order to grasp the deeper message. This restraint is a deliberate choice, and it works.
The most point blank yet evocative part of the film is Navarrette’s facial expressions and physical movements, that propel the storytelling and the emotions we attach with it; her switches between normalcy and mania are so quick and smooth, that she looks almost robotic. Though Bear and Nikki’s relationship truly puts into perspective the dangers of wanting too much too soon, the most interesting part is the constant moral dilemma as we keep wondering who is the actual victim among the two.
With Bear’s closed-off character, we are made to sympathise with him from the very beginning. But once his wish is made, you can’t help but feel for the sudden shift in Nikki’s character, switching from a normal, supportive friend to having her autonomy and individuality immediately removed, only so she can be the kind of girl a one-sided lover wants her to be... or at least he thinks he wants.
What makes Obsession especially disturbing is how closely its dynamics mirror real relationships. Everyone in Bear and Nikki's small circle notices the shift between them. His friends Sarah and Ian, played by Megan Lawless and Cooper Tomlinson, even raise their concerns, but Bear can’t bring himself to accept it because doing so would make it real. The irony is that none of it was real to begin with.
We see Nikki literally decay into becoming the person he wants her to be, as she harms herself and those around her in the process, becoming so disturbingly fragile that it is in her unraveling where the true horror lies. It also confirms that what Bear felt for her was never really love; it was just the idea of her and the fantasy of what he could have with her.
Unlike what is shown in most mainstream horror movies. Nikki’s transformation was not caused by a demonic source or possession.. it was due to a simple wish. Perhaps that is what makes processing the events unfolding on-screen so difficult to sit with — because it contextualises what it looks like to want something so desperately, finally have it, and then struggle to undo it because it is not what you thought you wanted.