Written and Directed by Curry Barker | 108 min | ▲▲▲ | In Cinemas
Bear (Michael Johnston) seems like a decent guy, if insecure. He’s had a longtime crush on his friend, Nikki (Inde Navarrette), and would really like to admit his feelings to her. He and Nikki work at a music instrument store with pals Ian (Cooper Tomlinson) and Sarah (Megan Lawless), whose father (former Conan O’Brien sidekick, Andy Richter) owns the place. Bear has the perfect opportunity one evening after trivia at the local pub, but he can’t quite muster the nerve. Instead, he uses a novelty gift he picked up at a mystic shop, something called One Wish Willow — you break a stick and make a wish, to make her love him.
His wish turns the otherwise independent, charming Nikki into a psychopath, with one thing on her mind: Bear. At first, even though he recognizes she’s behaving strangely, he enjoys the sudden attention. Even when he starts to understand the spell has quashed her agency, he still indulges in her. It’s only when she starts to act totally irrationally that he feels any regret for his behaviour — and that’s when the horror, the blood, and other bodily fluids, really come into it.
This cursed Monkey’s Paw horror is the crux of Obsession by YouTuber turned feature filmmaker Barker, and there’s no denying the professionalism in the work. The performances are committed (especially Navarrette, the whole movie hinges on her freak outs) and the look and sound design of the thing is deeply creepy, a lot of darkness and silhouettes. Obsession could be considered a minor classic in feel-bad cinema.
But why does it feel so bad? It’s because Bear is a hugely loathsome protagonist, and maybe that’s the point. Is Obsession a portrait of male cowardice? Bear gives total incel vibes — he takes the easy way out every chance he gets, right to the film’s final scenes. He’s entirely absent any personal courage, any accountability. It’s as if he’s slipped Nikki a roofie and then spends the rest of the movie taking advantage of her, while kind of feeling bad about it but not really doing anything to stop. Serving as a witness to the horror his decision precipitates chills to the core.
But that perspective, the cowardice frame, it credits Barker. That the film doesn’t really offer much, only a few, brief moments, of Nikki’s genuine POV could be a serious mark against it. That’s the thing — there’s a take that this filmmaker is instead indulging in male fear of women and commitment. It’s not hard to make the argument that Obsession, with its unblinking male gaze and deep cruelty toward the women in the film, is itself misogynist rather than a criticism of that behaviour.
I’m willing to give the filmmakers the benefit of the doubt on this, that their intent is to illustrate and reveal the toxic male trait, making the audience complicit (and seriously uncomfortable) along the way. Either way, I’ll never watch their movie again — Obsession is one hundred percent ick.
