Hey guys, just arrived at the OBSESSION discussion. Got held up by traffic. Is anybody still here? Hello?

Yeah, this movie made by some fresh-faced twenty-something Youtube guy named Curry Barker for less than a million dollars made $519 million in theaters alone. Stuck around forever, got great reviews, became one of the go-to talking points for hammering the big budget super and star related franchise movies that had underperformed around the same time. This and another hugely successful low budget horror movie made by a youth from the internet were pointed to as proof that we’re through the looking glass, it’s a generational shift, Hollywood as we know it is dead, buried and desecrated, it’s a whole new ball game, nothing will ever be the same, adults might not even be able to set foot in a movie theater without being attacked and having sixes and sevens carved into their flesh as part of a viral TikTok trend. It’s time to panic because a newish director’s low budget horror movie has never once in history been a surprise hit, unless you count NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD, THE LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT, THE TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE, HALLOWEEN, FRIDAY THE 13TH, THE EVIL DEAD, THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT, SAW, PARANORMAL ACTIVITY, TERRIFIER 2, and all the other ones.

Actually now that I think about it it’s pretty much one of the central horror traditions since before I was born for stuff like this to happen. But this time it’s brand new and will change all the rules, I’m sure.

Before all the excitement I saw a trailer for OBSESSION, the one where Bear (Michael Johnston, UNTITLED THE MUMMY RETURNS SEQUEL) calls the number on the package for his “One Wish Willow” and asks an operator (Barker himself) if he can alter his wish. In context it’s a good scene, but seeing it then I thought “Some magical realism shit about making wishes? I can skip that one.” Only after it had been out for a few weeks and the praise was practically unanimous did I decide I needed to see it. Eventually.

In case anyone’s reading who’s even slower than me at getting around to it, here’s what it’s about. Bear (short for Baron, so not necessarily stepping on Reservation Dogs) has an aching, all-consuming crush on his friend since childhood Nikki (Inde Navarrette, TRAP HOUSE). He confides to his buddy Ian (Barker’s Youtube comedy partner Cooper Tomlinson) that he’s going to finally tell her during the pub trivia they go to every week with Nikki and their other friend Sarah (Megan Lawless, THE HATE U GIVE), whose dad (Andy Richter, CABIN BOY) owns the musical instrument store they all work at.

It’s a terrible plan, because how do you bring up something untrivial during trivia when everyone is being loud and fun and you’re not a good talker? He keeps trying, but he’s awkward and keeps getting interrupted or chickening out. Even when he ends up driving her home and she straight up asks him if he has a crush on her he stumbles and fumbles. The dumb fuck. But I get it.

The wish thing comes in by accident. She had mentioned losing a crystal necklace, so he went to a kind of witch-y crystal shop to buy her a new one, couldn’t find anything good but bought this novelty One Wish Willow thing and failed to give it to her just like he failed to tell her about his feelings. So he’s alone in the car angry at himself and he opens the thing up and wishes she loved him “more than anyone in the world.” And then she does.

I was skeptical about this concept, but it works for me. This product that somehow, for some reason, actually is magic. Since they don’t try to explain it at all, I just rolled with it. It’s not a mythology, it’s a conceit. Don’t worry about how it works. What does make sense is that Bear himself would take a while to believe it worked, because why would it? That’s what prevents him from being an unbearable (sorry, honestly unintentional) protagonist. It’s weird that she’s suddenly interested in him, but it could happen, couldn’t it? And he slows her down a little. Notes that she’s been drinking and that she’s in an emotionally vulnerable state (she tells him her dad is dying of cancer). But also she kisses him and then suddenly stops and screams.

So for a while this is a story about getting together with your crush but they turn out to be a mess. Nikki says she was acting weird because she was on molly. But she proceeds to act much weirder, like she makes a shrine out of Bear’s dead cat. But they become a couple and there’s a montage that I thought represented months of dating but apparently not. How ever long it is, that’s the part where they’re happy together.

Then it’s kind of a tables-have-turned situation, where instead of him secretly longing and obsessing over his friend not loving him he’s constantly being made uncomfortable by her smothering attention, possessiveness and bizarre behavior. There’s a mix of FATAL ATTRACTION mania, J-Horror bodily contortions and PEARL-esque facial expressions. I enjoyed the dark humor of, for example, Bear acting like it’s normal for the door to be covered in a thick layer of duct tape that’s difficult to open because she doesn’t want him to go to work.

As everyone already agreed, Navarette is outstanding and one of the main reasons the movie works. She’s charming when she’s the real Nikki, really fitting the role of the friend you would have a crush on even though she clearly sees you as a friend, and then she’s something entirely different and inhuman when she’s the wish-Nikki. One of those horror characters who will be long remembered entirely because of the performance.

There’s a rift in his friend group because they don’t see them anymore, Ian finds out she’s lying about some things, Sarah had confessed a crush on Bear and thinks Nikki is messing with her for some reason. It’s sad because you can see how his friendship with Sarah is actually stronger than what he has with fake Nikki, but he doesn’t see her that way. He friend zones her.

I was already aware of debate about how much we’re meant to side with Bear. I believe some took it as he’s the good guy so we’re supposed to agree with everything he does but they, being more enlightened than you, knew that he was actually wrong and therefore the movie is bad. My take is that, duh, we should initially sympathize with him and at least think he means well, but there’s a definite “fuck this guy” point when he does know that this is a supernatural thing going on and the real Nikki screams from inside to kill her, and then he goes on with the charade anyway. Yes, I judge him as a bad person at that point. Sometimes that’s what happens in stories. That’s what this one is about.

I had already figured him for a terrible boyfriend. When he thinks the relationship is real and is trying to make things work he’s not going about it in a healthy way. He’s not trying to really discuss what he believes are emotional problems she’s going through. He’s just saying, like, don’t put cat meat in my sandwich. And the most damning thing is that we can see that this person he’s with is nothing like the one from pub trivia. Forget that she acts crazy and pisses on the floor, doesn’t it bother him that she doesn’t have Nikki’s personality at all? Wasn’t that what he was in love with? Apparently not.

But I think that’s real, especially for people at that age. I believe/hope I was never quite the same dumbass as Bear, but I recognize some of his dumbassery. I know for sure I have grown and learned how to be more supportive and communicative in relationships since I was that age, and it’s an ongoing process. I take this as a critique of common dude behavior, but even if it’s just reflective of the storyteller’s own blindspots, it rings true to me. Some people are like this.

I had heard this had some real shocking, brutal scares in it, but either that doesn’t translate to the home viewing experience or I’m jaded. However, I think it benefits from a real kick in the gut ending. I’m thinking SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER Mr. Dumbass is somewhat redeeming himself when he decides he has to commit suicide in order to undo the wish and restore the real Nikki. A harsh but just ending. But then we see the real Nikki returning to her body, possibly unaware of exactly what has gone on, definitely having lost all her friends and being (as far as anyone knows) the one who killed them. Out of the frying pan into the fire. It’s so upsetting. Sometimes an ending is so mean you gotta respect it. The DRAG ME TO HELL maneuver.

Despite all the hype, I don’t think Barker’s background is surprising. We could add him to the list of sketch comedy guys who became horror auteurs like Jordan Peele and Zach Cregger, but it goes back further than that. He made comedy videos, horror shorts, and even an $800 horror feature that he shared online. The technology is different from Sam Raimi making Super-8 movies and showing them in gyms, but the results are similar. Building skills and sensibilities through practice. That’s not new.

One reason for me to pay attention to Barker is that he’s been announced as writer/director of a TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE movie from A24. After finally seeing OBSESSION I thought okay, that’s fine. It’s a good movie, it’s pretty stylish, it has good performances, it was made on a low budget, these are all important for a TEXAS CHAIN SAW movie. And really he’s only a few years younger than Tobe Hooper was when he made the original. What gave me pause was when I read that Barker cites THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE as the first horror movie he saw, at the age of nine. Not the original, the fucking remake. Why did this happen? How did we get this old? Are we at the point where we complain about the new slaughterhouses not being as good?

As far as I know Barker’s only public CHAIN SAW are from a Q&A where he offended some people by saying “I think that the potential for that series has not been fully realized” and “I’m really excited to do a TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE that’s not just about a guy chasing some people around with a chainsaw, that has some heart to it. You care about these characters and want to see them survive, and you know, it’s brutal.”

I am a CHAIN SAW fundamentalist, but I don’t find that offensive. It’s the basic human vulnerability of Sally that we connect to, not any substantial characterization. I hope he pulls off what he’s talking about. And if I needed him to have correct opinions about the series I can take heart that he says he loves the original and that thinking “the 2003 remake is actually quite good too” could be from nostalgia.

That said, there is a very good chance you’re reading this five years later and you’re thinking “I forgot they said he was gonna do that, I wonder what that would’ve been like?” Hello from the past! I hope things are working out for you all.

Anyway, the world can be relieved that I agree with them, OBSESSION is good. It’s probly not my favorite horror movie of the year (other contenders so far: 28 YEARS LATER: THE BONE TEMPLE, EVIL DEAD BURN, RESIDENT EVIL, PRIMATE, FACES OF DEATH), so there’s a tiny bit of “That’s what all the fuss was about?” But it’s a new horror movie that’s solidly entertaining. I like those.

I don’t have a strict plan for my October viewing, but I want to start by catching up with some recent-ish ones I’ve neglected. Tune in next week when I try the other big 2026 horror hit from an even younger internet guy.