By Gabe Solis
“Obsession” is a hit. There’s no denying it. It’s half of this year’s success storm for low-budget horror films made by YouTube creators (the other half being Kane Parsons’ “Backrooms”), and its triumph is highlighted even further by the box-office struggles faced by major studio productions like “Supergirl”. It’s a prime example of the type of movie young audiences want to see.
It’s also riddled with issues, which range from amusing filmmaking quirks to harmful social implications.
“Obsession,” directed by Curry Barker, follows a young man named Baron, nicknamed “Bear” (Michael Johnston), who is desperately in love with his friend Nikki (Inde Navarrette). Unable to confess his true feelings, Bear turns to a gag gift he purchased for Nikki called a “One Wish Willow,” which he uses to wish that she loved him back. This causes her to be possessed by a force that makes her dangerously consumed by her love for him, turning her violent, twisted, and cruel. What follows is an admittedly disturbing tale, but one that hinders itself by misusing its ideas such that it seems somewhat unsure of the point that it wants to make.
Before we dive into the issues, though, there is a major saving grace here, and her name is Inde Navarette. She is, in essence, playing two characters: real Nikki and possessed Nikki. She is able to flawlessly capture the extreme terror that comes with one, the extreme psychosis that comes with the other, and the nuances that come with both. She makes it look effortless. The whole cast is formidable (I’m always here for some Andy Richter love), but her performance easily stands out among the others. A fair portion of the movie is only as enjoyable as it is because of how fun she is to watch. Even her performance, though, is not enough for this film to escape from the problems that befall it.
We’ll start with the less meaty stuff. The scares in this film can be genuinely great, and Barker does indeed display an eye for the genre (that scene with Nikki in the bedroom, hiding just on the edge of frame? A-plus). At other points, though, the film relies heavily on trope-y horror, which is often distracting and at times downright goofy. A lot of people at my screening laughed, and I can’t say I blame them. In its swings for dramatic effect, the film can sometimes be over the top.
The big issue, however, is far more structural.
It’s easily recognizable that Nikki is a victim in the story, her autonomy and humanity stripped from her as she is forced to spend every waking second crazing over a person whom she had no romantic interest in in the first place. The film seems to realize this, and hints at it several times. Nikki’s true consciousness occasionally breaks through the obsessive persona and appears terrified. At one point, Bear calls the number on the back of the One Wish Willow box and is allowed to hear the real Nikki screaming in anguish. In the couple’s bedroom one night, the real Nikki speaks to Bear as her possessed body sleeps, begging him to kill her so that she no longer has to endure what he’s putting her through. And finally, at the end of the film, the possession is lifted, and the real Nikki weeps at the death and destruction that has been wreaked around her, through no fault of her own.
Scenes like these make it very clear that the film is aware of Nikki’s status as a victim. With that in mind, the decision to present her as the antagonist is baffling. Sure, it’s made clear that Bear’s actions are wrong, eventually becoming outright evil as the story progresses (“What’s so bad about being with me?” he asks his possessed girlfriend, whose entire being he has stolen to satiate his own desires). But Bear isn’t the one that the movie uses to try to scare us. Nikki is. The “horror” part of this horror film comes from her actions, the things that she does while she’s possessed. We’re supposed to be afraid of her! It doesn’t make sense given the setup and the premise. It’s this misfitting puzzle piece that muddles the message. What Bear does to Nikki is, on a foundational level, more terrifying than anything she does while possessed throughout the runtime. If this is a story about Nikki being taken advantage of in the most extreme conceivable way, why is she the one that we’re supposed to recoil from? It makes for some good scares (among a few laughable ones), but it’s counterintuitive to what the movie is trying to say.
“Obsession” is also, at times, majorly insensitive in its handling of its subject matter. There’s the aforementioned scene in which the real Nikki begs Bear to kill her so that she no longer has to live in her possessed form. It’s a powerful way to show the effect that Bear’s actions have had on her, certainly, but it didn’t sit right with me. In a movie that uses fantastical circumstances as a metaphor for abusive relationships, it just felt wrong to include. No one gets possessed by evil spirits from magic shop toys, but plenty of people get trapped in abusive relationships. It reads as callous to throw in a scene where a character says that they would rather die than be in their situation without giving that very real scenario the respect and care that it deserves if you’re going to cover it. Because we don’t ever really get to know the real Nikki, the line feels slightly like an unearned throwaway, and the topic is not one that should be thrown away. Later on, the movie’s usage of suicide as a plot device suffers from a similar issue. Both Nikki and Bear attempt suicide, and Bear is eventually successful, breaking the curse and freeing Nikki. There is little buildup to it, and again it’s not treated with the severity that a situation like that calls for. Also, from a metaphorical perspective, to suggest that the “cure” for an abusive relationship is for either party to die by suicide is problematic, to say the least. These are the most major instances of a tone-deafness that crops up throughout the runtime – another symptom of the fundamental issues that afflict this film.
Let me sketch an idea for you. Imagine a version of “Obsession” told from Nikki’s perspective instead of Bear’s. A play on body horror, capitalizing on themes like the loss of autonomy and control over one’s body and life. A movie where the audience is allowed to be focused on and scared by the horror of Bear’s actions, instead of being distracted from them. The seeds of this version are there, and if they were allowed to grow, they could have made for a more effective, more unsettling, and more thought-provoking final product. As is, the film has some great moments, solid performances, and wins points for covering a topic not often covered in horror. But it trips over itself, and overall, one can’t help but wonder what it could have been.
“Obsession” is streaming and in theaters now.
