It showed up on my feed one too many times to ignore. Trailers, reaction videos, people in comment sections, and even some of my closest friends are talking about it. Obsession has had that kind of momentum since it premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival last year, and by the time Focus Features locked in a May 15 U.S. theatrical release, the anticipation was already at a level most horror films never reach.
So I did what anyone would do. I bought a ticket and went in knowing as little as possible. I was hoping it’d be available on a few streaming services, but I was not able to find one, so there’s that.
What Is the Premise of Obsession?
A hopeless romantic breaks a mysterious object called the One Wish Willow to make his crush fall for him. The wish works. And then things get very, very wrong. And that kind of wrong is not one you can take back in a snap. On paper, that reads like a dozen other supernatural romance-gone-dark stories.
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What director Curry Barker does with that premise is the reason this film sits at 95% on Rotten Tomatoes. It starts in a place that feels almost lighthearted, lets you get comfortable, and then pulls the floor out. I was not braced for it. I remembered that one movie I watched way back on DISH Network. I was literally watching casually not knowing what I signed up for. That’s how it felt.
How the Cast Did the Real Work
Michael Johnston and Inde Navarette were sooo good in this movie. Michael as Bear, the hopeless romantic at the center of everything (a.k.a the one who thought breaking the Wish Willow was a great idea while blurting out his desperate wish). He plays the early scenes with this awkward, endearing energy that makes you root for him. And then when the film shifts into darker territory, he’ll take you with him naturally.
Inde Navarrette though. I kept thinking about her performance on the drive home. There is something genuinely unpredictable about the way she plays her role and I mean that as the highest compliment. You never know what she is going to do in any given scene. Every scene she is in has a different texture and the film is noticeably more alive because of it. I don’t know why, but it reminded me of when I joined my dad while TV streaming and that creepy scene in the movie Smile played on the TV.
The Kind of Horror Is Typical but Timeless
There is a specific scene in this film that almost got it an NC-17 rating. Barker has talked about it in interviews, explaining how the MPA made him trim several seconds to bring it down to an R. Even with the cuts, a lot will find it disturbing. I even heard someone behind me say something that I will not repeat here.
Since I am a big fan of dark humor, I loved every bit of this movie. There were a few times that I kept laughing at moments I had no business laughing at. Balancing genuinely funny and genuinely disturbing is hard to pull off and Barker does it with a confidence that most horror directors twice his experience do not have.
Could It Have Been Better?
Yes, I believe it could have been better. I’m not saying it’s not great. It is by all means. It’s just that after the adrenaline wore off, I found myself wanting a bit more substance underneath everything. The concept is strong and the execution is confident, but some of the supporting threads feel underdeveloped.
Or maybe, just maybe, it was intended to be that way. There were lots of different interpretations as to what really happened at the ending and whatnot. And I do think that it played a big part on why this movie suddenly boomed.
Obsession Is Definitely Worth the Hype.
Yes, and I say that as someone who went in skeptical after weeks of seeing it everywhere. It is not reinventing horror but it does exactly what a great horror film is supposed to do. Not everyone will agree, because obviously, we have different tastes and standards when it comes to films, but for me, I’d say this movie is a solid 10/10.
