Horror, like every other genre, has certain foundational narrative concepts that are simply timeless. They’re reliable, and when they’re used right they can make well-trodden territory feel like untouched terrain. Curry Barker’s Obsession finds success with one such concept: the cursed wish.
On the surface, the film can be seen as a relationship-focused version of The Monkey’s Paw by W.W. Jacobs, where a mummified monkey’s paw grants wishes in a strictly literal sense. But that’s selling the movie short. What Barker achieved with his debut feature film is something way more special.
Obsession follows Bear (Michael Johnston), a guy that’s head over heels for his co-worker Nikki (masterfully played by Inde Navarrette). Bear finally decides to declare his love for Nikki, prompting him to go to a store to buy something nice for her to sweeten the deal. There he finds a retro-packaged wishing stick called One Wish Willow.
When he fails at expressing his true feelings for her, he uses the One Wish Willow on impulse. He wishes Nikki would love him more than anyone in the world. The wish made manifest, Nikki falls for Bear. But Bear is quick to learn that getting what you want is not all it’s cut out to be, and that it invites in a very cruel kind of darkness.
While performances are strong all around, it’s Inde Navarrette’s Nikki that really sets the movie apart. Her presence is overwhelming and painful, a constant reminder that the wish only ever benefits Bear and no one else. She gives a very physical performance that makes you think something else is behind the wheel, and that the real her is suffering inside her body somewhere.
This comes through in certain moments, where the real Nikki briefly regains control of her body. It works to remind audiences that the wish stripped her of the ability to consent to anything, that she’s doomed to comply. It’s refreshing to see someone tell the story through raw emotion and physicality rather than through clumsy exposition and heavy-handed dialogue.
Michael Johnston’s approach to Bear, on the other hand, centers on male entitlement in matters of love, especially in terms of how immature and childlike it can be. Love for Bear is a need, one that can easily outstay its welcome and then become undesirable should his idealized version of it steer away from the path. It’s myopic. Nikki’s obsession is great in the beginning, but like all honeymoon phases, it eventually fizzles out. Bear then decides its time to take back the wish, only he can’t.
Rather than turning the relationship into an exploration and a condemnation of male toxicity in general, it instead goes for something more specific. It addresses the misleading idea that male obsession is innocent, an intense but justified expression of love. Bear sees himself as the wronged party after his attempt at telling Nikki he loves her falls through. Rather than owning his failure, he instead considers himself deserving of a wish that gives him what he wants.
When his friends point out that Nikki might be going through a mental crisis and that some people think he’s taking advantage of the situation, it hits harder. In fact, it perfectly describes the situation. He is taking advantage of a situation in which Nikki is not in control of her actions. The one important detail here is that the crisis was brought upon by Bear himself, through some terrible form of magic, and that it still doesn’t excuse him from reaping the one-sided benefits of it.
Bear’s resistance to Nikki after things go from weird to terrifying exposes how men condition their version of love to how comfortable and agreeable they feel within the couple dynamic. The moment that changes, it’s seen as acceptable to want to cut ties and move on, leaving the “crazy girlfriend” behind.
Johnston plays all this out with considerable victim energy. It’s all something that happened to him rather than something he brought upon himself. Director Barker is careful not to turn Nikki into a monster to drive the point more clearly here, so that the spotlight lands squarely on Bear as the person responsible for this nightmare. Johnston takes full advantage of this, too. He indulges the character’s more pathetic side to show how a sad and shy man can turn a woman into a deeply tortured soul without any sort of agency.
Barker and his team further distance Nikki from monstrosity by resorting to shadows and clever makeup work to establish that she didn’t willingly become this new version of herself. In fact, if there’s a monster in any of this, then Bear is its Frankenstein. The effect is haunting, and it gives the story a more sinister feel that ramps up the terror.
The only complaint that can be levied at Obsession is that the lore behind the One Wish Willow is minimal and played mostly for laughs. This isn’t bad necessarily, but it sometimes breaks with the logic of the story. There is one scene that uses a bit of lore to great effect, but it’s the exception. The point was certainly to focus on the wish itself, to not explain everything away. But a little goes a long way, especially as it’s very easy to go to a store and buy one of the wish sticks in the movie. The power behind the object itself is so great that it deserved more exploration.
Regardless, Obsession cements itself as one of the best horror movies of the year with its biting criticism of desperate men consumed by hopeless love. It makes the argument that misplaced notions of innocence can turn romance into a prison. It’s more nuanced than expected, and it greatly benefits from specificity. In horror, wishes often end up being shortcuts to Hell. Obsession does its part in reinforcing this idea, and it’ll make you question just how much you should trust someone who tells you they’ve been secretly in love with you for a long time.
