{"id":161341,"date":"2025-09-22T15:54:07","date_gmt":"2025-09-22T15:54:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/161341\/"},"modified":"2025-09-22T15:54:07","modified_gmt":"2025-09-22T15:54:07","slug":"we-wished-for-an-unforgettable-unique-horror-movie-and-got-exactly-that-with-obsession","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/161341\/","title":{"rendered":"We Wished for an Unforgettable, Unique Horror Movie and Got Exactly That With ‘Obsession’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Just when you think you\u2019ve seen every premise imaginable<\/a> for a horror movie, someone comes up with one that\u2019s so simple, so perfect, so devious, you can\u2019t believe it hasn\u2019t been done a million times before<\/a>. With Obsession, writer-director Curry Barker tells the story of Bear, a young man who is madly in love<\/a> with his good friend and co-worker Nikki. Bear wants to tell Nikki how he feels, but he can\u2019t muster up the courage. So, when he happens upon a gag gift that promises to grant you one wish, he figures it couldn\u2019t hurt. But oh, how wrong he is.<\/p>\n

Using the knick-knack called a \u201cOne Wish Willow,\u201d Bear (Michael Johnston) wishes for Nikki (Inde Navarrette) to love him more than anything in the world, and it magically comes true. Almost instantly, things get awkward. Out of nowhere, Nikki starts acting incredibly odd, almost like there are two people fighting inside her. Bear\u2019s okay with it, though, because she\u2019s finally into him. Soon, things start to escalate, and escalate, and escalate. Their interactions are funny, then creepy, then violent, then really creepy, then really violent, then really really\u2026 you get the idea. For the entire film, Barker keeps us on our toes by constantly varying the level of intensity. Each scene changes wildly from one to the next, but, thanks in part to great performances from Johnston and Navarrette, the movie never feels tonally awkward. It all fits together seamlessly.<\/p>\n

Both leads are incredible in the movie. Johnston starts as an aw-shucks, nice guy lacking confidence\u2014at first, he seems okay with getting his wish fulfilled. But as things get weirder, more awkward, and scarier, we see him struggle with just how far he\u2019s willing to push this, and how much he\u2019s willing to forgive. The movie simultaneously wants you to love and hate Bear, rooting for him to reach his dreams but admonishing him for what he\u2019s done to his friend, and with each scene, Johnston conveys all of that in his being. Then there\u2019s Navarrette, who, as Nikki, is nothing short of astonishing. She\u2019s got a huge range to play with in the role, of course, but she is constantly captivating, terrifying, and also insanely lovable. It\u2019s a similar balance to the movie\u2019s lens on Bear himself: you get why he would love her so much, but feel increasingly terrible for what is happening as she puts her body through the ringer and back again.<\/p>\n

And while Barker could\u2019ve just kept that story as the sole focus, Bear and Nikki\u2019s two best friends, Ian (Cooper Tomlinson) and Sarah (Megan Lawless), provide much-needed perspective on all this. Just like a real relationship, sometimes when you\u2019re inside one, you don\u2019t really know how it looks to everyone else. Ian and Sarah figure out very quickly that something is very, very wrong with Bear and Nikki\u2019s relationship, and that point of view provides even more twists and turns.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s even a throughline about the lore of this mysterious wish-granter called a \u201cOne Wish Willow,\u201d which we would\u2019ve loved to see explored even more. But maybe that can happen if we visit this world again. Because the idea that these \u201cOne Wish Willows\u201d are out there in the real world, ready to screw up someone\u2019s life, is just as ripe, if not more so, than the story we\u2019re seeing unfold.<\/p>\n

But the true brilliance of Obsession\u2014and make no mistake, it is brilliant\u2014is its simplicity. Bear wished for Nikki to love him more than anything in the world. Anything: that means more than herself. More than her friends. More than, well, anything, and the film pushes those boundaries and plays with the notion to incredible effect. It never gets too far over the top, but it also never lets you forget just how far the boundaries of those words can go.<\/p>\n

At times during Obsession, I was laughing out loud. At other times, I was legitimately terrified. And there were plenty of moments along the way filled with shock and disgust. It has everything you could want in a horror movie. And the fact that it provides such a new, unique spin on the idea of wishes or love makes it all the better.<\/p>\n

Obsession just had its U.S. premiere at Fantastic Fest 2025 and was recently picked up for distribution by Focus Features out of the Toronto International Film Festival. Which is great news. That means, at some point in the future, you will be able to see our latest horror obsession: Obsession.<\/p>\n

Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel<\/a>, Star Wars<\/a>, and Star Trek<\/a> releases, what\u2019s next for the DC Universe on film and TV<\/a>, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Just when you think you\u2019ve seen every premise imaginable for a horror movie, someone comes up with one…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":161342,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[64,63,82422,134,54161,106906,106907,344,85719],"class_list":["post-161341","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-curry-barker","tag-entertainment","tag-fantastic-fest","tag-inde-navarrette","tag-michael-johnston","tag-movies","tag-obsession"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161341","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=161341"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161341\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/161342"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=161341"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=161341"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=161341"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}