Sneha Jaiswal (Twitter | Instagram)
By the last 20 minutes of ‘Obsession’ I started laughing at the gory bits, because things became a little predictable, but as a longtime horror fan, this film was very entertaining. It uses the familiar ‘be careful what you wish for’ plot device to terrorize its characters and creep the viewer out.
Written and directed by Curry Barker, ‘Obsession’ stars Michael Johnston as Bear, a socially awkward young man crushing on his childhood friend Nikki (Inde Navarrette), although he just can’t gather the courage to ask her out and is pretty sure she’ll turn him down. When he buys a “One Wish Willow” from a curiosity shop as a gift for Nikki, he ends up making a wish for himself instead and finds his deepest desire coming true. But since this is a horror film, we all know things are going to turn out badly.
‘Obsession’ is a little like the horror film ‘It Follows’, but just that protagonist Bear unwittingly wishes for a curse and the entity following him doesn’t take shape of random strangers, but remains the same: it’s Nikki. She immediately hooks up with him after he makes a wish and thus begins their strange ‘love and terror’ relationship.
Viewers only get a brief glimpse of Nikki’s real personality before she becomes Bear’s new girlfriend. People around them can’t believe they’re suddenly together, with one reaction essentially amounting to, “Did she suffer brain damage?” (Well, not in those exact words.) Given its almost two-hour runtime, I wish ‘Obsession’ had dedicated a few more minutes to showing us what Nikki and Bear’s dynamic was like before the two dive into a passionate affair that quickly goes south.
Regardless, Inde Navarrette is terrific as the obsessive Nikki, making you fear her even as you can’t help feeling sorry for her. It’s almost as if there’s some voodoo or black magic at play, forcing Nikki to become increasingly erratic and dysfunctional. A few scenes where her behavior descends into pure mania reminded me of Caitlin Stasey’s cameo in the first Smile film, where she plays a student who brutally kills herself. It’s mostly Caitlin’s deeply unsettling smile that brought the comparison to mind, and honestly, it isn’t hard to imagine her playing Nikki in Obsession.
The most interesting thing about ‘Obsession’ is Bear’s willingness to endure Nikki’s increasingly erratic behavior because, on some level, he’s still getting what he wanted. Bear knows something is terribly wrong, yet continues to enjoy whatever scraps of his fantasy the wish gives him, even as everything else becomes agonizing. He may initially seem like the victim of a magical wish gone wrong, but he’s also its perpetrator, with Nikki ultimately becoming his scapegoat. Michael Johnston plays that victim-villain duality convincingly.
The film essentially asks how much misery someone is willing to accept and inflict just to possess what they want. And we see this play out from both Bear and Nikki’s POV. Obsession is unsettling, violent, and has a generous amount of body horror and uncomfortable moments. Some of them are darkly comical, while one particular scene feels like it was inserted purely to gross viewers out rather than add anything to the story. But well, it’s hard for a horror film not to give in to that temptation: throw in something exaggeratedly bizarre just to mess with your head.
The pace, for the most part, is great, but like I wrote at the beginning of this review, by the time Obsession reaches its climactic moments, it becomes increasingly difficult to take seriously. I did find my interest waning a little, and one crucial jump scare was way too predictable. But is all the hype worth it? For horror fans, I’d say yes. Obsession is definitely one to add to the watch list.
You can rent ‘Obsession’ on Prime Video or Zee5.
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