Joey Magidson
I truly hate being a severe outlier. Especially with a basically universally acclaimed horror title (I have a weekly horror column in Sunday Scaries, after all), it would give me nothing but pleasure to add my voice to the praise of Obsession. Unfortunately, I just did not see the same film that everyone else did. While I do think the filmmaker has a future (more on that below), this movie did not work for me, nearly at all. I did not care for it one bit and actually found it rather cruel, as opposed to fun. This is one of the bigger disappointments of 2026 for me, which I legitimately hate to say.
Obsession wants to be a crowd-pleasing fright flick, without question, but it just left a real bad taste in my mouth. I was on board for this monkey’s paw type tale, but as it progressed, it started to get particularly icky. There’s a cruelty towards the female characters that I don’t believe is intentional, but certainly colored things for me. What aspires to be a Zach Cregger style work can only gaze longingly at what Barbarian and Weapons managed to pull off.
Bear (Michael Johnston) is hopelessly in love with his friend and co-worker Nikki (Inde Navarrette). His other co-workers/friends Ian (Cooper Tomlinson) and Sarah (Megan Lawless) give him advice, but Bear mostly just crushes and wishes things would be different. Why can’t she love him? He’s a nice guy, after all. While looking for a gift for Nikki, Bear comes across a “One Wish Willow” in a store, buying it almost on a whim. It purports to grant you a single wish, and after an awkward night out with Nikki, he wishes that she would love him more than anything else in the world. Well, be careful what you wish for…
Almost immediately, Nikki becomes obsessed with him. Thrown for a loop, it takes a bit for Bear to buy into it, but from then on, they’re an inseparable couple. If not for the moments where she screams in horror and seems confused by her surroundings, it would be perfect. Well, at least until Nikki’s weird behavior has Ian and Sarah concerned that Bear is taking advantage of her during some kind of mental health episode. As he finds his friends backing away from him/them, her behavior becomes more and more bizarre, as well as dangerous. What is he to do, especially when the only way for the wish to end is for one of them to die? Well…
The best part of this movie is the performance from Inde Navarrette, who makes Nikki an interesting character before the wish, and then a chilling prisoner afterwards. The manic episodes are upsetting and break right back into a rictus smile, highlighting the war going on inside of her. My kingdom for the movie to have actually been, even in part, from her perspective. Sadly, we always stick with Bear, and Michael Johnston is fine, yet very bland. Moreover, but having us identify with the nice guy doing some decidedly less than nice things, we should feel conflict. Instead, we just don’t care. Megan Lawless and Cooper Tomlinson have very little to do, while Andy Richter has a thankless supporting role.
Filmmaker Curry Barker has received plenty of acclaim for Obsession, and it’s certainly a calling card film. I just wish I saw what everyone else sees in it. The jump scares and moments of gore are obvious and telegraphed. The humor rarely lands. There’s only lip service paid to how plenty of guys who are monsters claim to be nice guys. Barker’s direction should translate well to his take on The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, though his writing feels half baked. Again, there’s also a cruel streak here towards the women, as well as a bit of animal cruelty, that just sat very poorly with me.
Obsession may well work for you, even if it did not for me in the least. Maybe I just saw it on the wrong day? The elements are there for a memorable fright flick. Given my passion for horror, it should have been up my alley. Instead, this is a scary movie that wants to be a crowdpleaser, yet only managed to leave me shaking my head. Alas.
SCORE: ★★
Horror isn’t for beta males.
Now wait, don’t be so hard on yourself. Horror, like any genre, is for everyone. So you’re more than welcome to enjoy it. I hope that helps put your mind at ease.
Agreed. I love horror movies but this was extremely boring. I could not connect to any of the cast
For sure. There not being a connection makes the experience a failure, for me at least, and sounds like for you as well.
Another week, another overrated social media highly praised horror flick that kinda left me going that’s it?
Aside from two gore enhanced scenes as film felt like student art project that had no where of importance to go. It certainly wasn’t the most terrifying film of the year.
Fair enough. Seems like we’re in the minority here.
Obsession is a gimmick film that did very little in the way of utilizing the gimmick in any sort of creative and engaging manner for me. I thought I was watching a junior college drama class put on a low budget production in an off-putting environment wherever the characters were hanging in their attire consisting of unimaginative, other era, slacker-ish backwards baseball caps as we follow a leading man who consistently looks greasy and unkempt – like he hasn’t showered or been home in a week, even prior to the horror shenanigans taking place. Combine that with a director’s decision to stay far too long on close-ups of banal conversations taking place during scenes that left me with nothing and what we had (I felt) was a wasted opportunity, particularly at the very beginning, to maybe have a montage showing examples of our main guy being completely infatuated with our leading lady which would have better provided us, the audience, with this character’s motivation.
I didn’t get that at all from the Bear character about Nikki and I was not drawn in to this film’s world from the get-go. That is troubling as a filmgoer when that happens. It never got better for me.
I largely agree.
Obsession still has me shaken and disturbed days after watching, which is why I agree that it is not some “crowd-pleasing fright flick.” The movie is more deep than any ordinary horror film.
The aim of the movie was not for cheap thrills as you posit, but to provoke the audience to think. Your whole commentary on the movie’s “flaws” really are outlining its philosophical strengths. The movie is cruel, and does remove women’s power, begging the questions: why are women being mistreated and why is Bear taking advantage of these women? Could it possibly be a commentary on the red pill movement — the manosphere?
I understand why you may not like the movie. Obsession is incredibly dark and emotionally unsettling. Despite the main tension being created by a supernatural “monkey paw,” this situation could happen in real life. Or, you may not have liked the movie because you did not feel scared like you thought you should have. Either way, the movie still has philosophical depth and good quality that you cannot ignore, such as Inde Navarrette’s jaw-dropping performance, which I don’t think you praised enough.
To your comment about the moments of gore being obvious and telegraphed, I disagree. There is only one real jump-scare in the whole movie, which I thought was terrifying. The point of the jump-scare was not the gore, but a release from an hour long build-up. It may not have scared you, which is fine, but the jump-scare’s purpose was to serve the plot more-so than to instill fear.
All in all, it’s okay not to like a movie, but not okay to attack its quality based on your personal feelings. Being scared is subjective. Understanding build-up and philosophical depth is objective.
I’m thrilled you found it to be more effective of a film than I did. Just a small note here…writing a negative review is not attacking its quality, it’s a critique, which is very different. As for my personal feelings? This is my job. Why would I want to not like something and feel like my time was wasted? I go into every movie hoping it’s the best thing I’ll see that day/week/month. Horror? Doubly so, considering I literally write a weekly column dedicated to the genre, I like it so much. This one? Just didn’t work for me. It worked for you? Fantastic. I love that for you.
Agree. Just a few comments as to why I didn’t enjoy it as much as everyone else – the script was bland and unrealistic to the real world, his acting was horrible and not on par to hers, the audio could have been better (at times I could not hear some of the actors over the music), a few minor details went unnoticed such as the timing of the digital clock and the soiled carpet was left uncleaned, the plot in many scenes were not believable to the real world e.g., not getting upset about cooking his dead cat, acting like a beta when she scared him and so on…. Many praise the film and justify it’s downfalls by its independence nature, but excuses are not defences. Imo, it felt rushed and a constructive review would have been beneficial.
Very fair. I know most don’t agree, but that’s the nature of art, right?
Couldn’t tell where the humor was intentional, or just a result of it being kinda stupid.
Oh, I can assure you, it can be both.
I’m ABSOLUTELY with you on this – The most overrated horror film of all time in my opinion. It’s absolutely ludicrous and comical. And don’t even get me started on the demonisation of BPD. To think Alex Forster in the 80’s was done a disservice by Fatal, lol this is the 21st century and while I seldom go on about this stuff I found it absolutely baseless and still heavily reliant on the crazy, sexy woman trope. And that’s not the worst thing about it – Use your trope but atleast give us real horror. This was soooo bad omg is everyone hypnotized or what coz I honestly don’t believe people can actually like this.
So predictable that it was almost unpredictable, because it just left me feeling as though there has to be more than this, right? Essentially, just a bunch of clips thrown in that were supposed to be disgusting, disturbing or frightening. We get it…she’s cursed and crazy; be careful what you wish for. Could they hammer that point home any further? Just not very interesting or intriguing at the end of the day.
Understandable.
Duly noted.
100% agree! What are the people who loved this movie smoking?
I did not like it at all. Can’t believe I wasted so much money in traveling and buying a ticket. What are people watching ?? If they are rating this at 8.2 on IMDB, not sure I can trust IMDB at all!
Noted.
If there’s one thing obsession doesn’t want to be it’s a crowd pleasing fright flick. The mistreating of Nikki and the complete cowardice of bear is practically the point of the movie.
Two separate thoughts, and also, not practically, but literally the point of the movie. Whether it does it effectively or not is what people are debating, not if it’s doing it at all. Hope that clears things up for you a bit.
i wish you explained more why you didnt like it. i did not like it either but i have different reasons. the perspective of nikki would definitely be more interesting too. thx for writing regardless
Thanks for reading.
Don’t worry, you’re not the only person that didn’t like the movie. I thought the movie was bad for the most part. There’s just way too much talking when there doesn’t need to be any talking. The characters just talk and blabber too much and that talking doesn’t add, show or reveal anything about what’s going on. He needed to cut a lot of it out of the movie. The scene where she is standing in the bedroom in the dark corner, that didn’t scare me, that just made me laugh. Her acting is decent, but I felt that she took it too far in some scenes and her range is not that impressive, there are actors that have much more ranger than her. Also, there’s a part when he goes to the friend’s house when the girl is finally losing it (I believe after she kills the girl he knows from the store), he basically restates the entire plot of the movie to him. Are you kidding me? That really ruined the movie for me at that point. I’m 28 years old, an aspiring filmmaker, and I am genuinely shocked that people are praising this movie.
I wasn’t worried, but duly noted.
EXACTLY. THANK YOU. Thank god I’m not alone in my pure dislike of this movie. It sucked!!
I really did not like this film! It’s hard to find reviews of people pointing out it’s flaws and its cruelty. When there is intense cruelty and violence done to women onscreen, there needs to be a big revenge plot for me — even then that’s still an exploitation flick (you know deathproof etc). This was just exploitation without any fun for me.
Fair enough!
I’m usually a fan of horror/thrillers but after watching this film there wasn’t really anything to take away or think about like most good films make you do.
First off, Niki’s character was completely half baked. We did not get any insight into her life before the “possession” at all. Having that insight into her life and who she was as a person would’ve made the stakes way more real. And I don’t know if it was by intention or not, but it made her character feel like a prop and not an actual person.
My real problem with this film was the kind of commentary it has strung up online about male insecurity, loneliness, fake “nice guys” etc. Search this movie on YouTube and you’ll find a plethora of videos from film bros, reviewers, and critics all gloating about this movie and its deep commentary on how toxic nice guys are and that their insecurity hurts women and so on.
As a woman I feel this entire conversation surrounding the movie diminishes women in the first place. These kinds of conversations always center Bear and talk about Niki only in relation to him (but then again I can’t really blame the reviewers because she wasn’t really a character). Disclaimer, we all understand that Bear is a POS and his actions hurt Niki just like how guys in real life hurt women and take away their autonomy because of their insecurities. That to me is very surface level commentary and is not really a mind blowing concept like some critics are making it out to be in 2026.
In my opinion, this movie is only popular because of the leading actress, her incredible performance, and the gorey/body horror concepts in the film. The movie does not have good enough writing to get away with the fact that Niki (who was being abused by Bear) was made to be in very compromising positions for a lot of the times, and is not in physical control of her body (to the point that she wets herself multiple times and at one point soils herself). It would be one thing if the movie actually had meaningful commentary to adequately make use of these kinds of imagery, but it doesn’t. You can’t tell me it’s not humiliating Niki just to humiliate her. There isn’t any pay off or anything the movie says by humiliating and abusing her character except to scare Bear and us, the audience.
And speaking of the audience, the movie directly appeals to the demographic it is supposedly warning us about. Most men will see a movie about a hot girl who’s crazy and obsessed over an average guy (something that driectly appeals to their fantasies) and leave the theater without actually intellectually engaging with the film. This movie is no different than cheap body horror/gore films that absolutely humiliate their female characters all for the viewers’ pleasure. It’s kind of fetishistic in the abuse of its female characters.
Obviously, I don’t think this was the director’s intentions. However, the writing is not very good and it doesn’t really say anything meaningful or original about modern dating or relationships, female autonomy, or even about men and their loneliness, except that “incel = bad,” which is obviously true, but not revolutionary enough to garner the praise that it did.
The ending also felt too good to be true. So after doing all that and causing so much destruction, Bear dies and gets to escape all the consequences while Niki wakes up and has to deal with the aftermath. Are you kidding? I get that it’s supposed to say how “women have to deal with the consequences of men’s actions and they get off scot free and blah blah blah,” but that again, felt like such a horrible outcome for Niki. They could have said the same thing without doing that to her. Like it almost feels sadistic at this point.
If the movie actually fleshed out its female characters (both Niki and Sarah, and not have them BOTH be in love with Bear), gave Bear actual consequences, or just spent some more time in the writer’s room honing the screenplay and going a different direction, it would have made for a much better film, especially with hoe strong the leading actors’ performances were.
A very well thought out response!
I absolutely agree. I’m so frustrated that it got 98%. It was incredibly boring, the plot sucked, the writing sucked. I was actually pissed off when I left the theater. And the fact that so many people think it’s so good is insanity to me.
I wouldn’t go that far, but I get it.
Inde was fantastic , but we got zero other information other than “she’s hot” before the wish happen. I also had an issue with the lack of logic. Why did she default to cruelty to animals (and cast) what was it that was compelling her? We never get a set logic to invest in there for most of the things that happen , happen because the script says so. It kept bringing me out of it over and over again. I didn’t care for Michael’s flat performance and the rest of the cast just seemed flimsy. Shock value is fine , byt shock for shock only tends to hit one note and stay there, making it predictable. I guess im getting g old but I love the Simpsons, reading he wrote this after watching an old 90s episode perhaps didnt help the case. It feels derivative from that episode and maybe a little “talk to me” ish. I dont know , borrowing ideas is fine , but sampling from recent hits kinda sticks in my craw. Dont get me started on Hollywood’s desperation to push youtubers as a way of outsourcing the work of finding new talent. ” oh look these guys found a following , now we just pay them , sit back and watch the money roll in” without actually taking risks
Duly noted.
totally hated this film for the same reasons – it was disturbing to deliver shocks and i was bored out of my skull
Duly noted.