Loneliness is terrifying.
But Obsession is scarier.
At least that is Curry Barker’s pitch in his recent masterclass of horror.
The film opens on a vignette of a few friends in a diner, with our main character, Bear (Michael Johnston), rehearsing a love confession.
It is awkward, stilted and sincere.
An unfortunately common situation is that about a third of unmarried adults have never been in a relationship, according to Pew Research.
And Bear seems to be a card-carrying member of that third.
When we see him in the presence of his crush Nikki (Inde Navarrette), he fumbles so much that any man who has ever struggled with confidence will find a first viewing painful. It is organic, raw.
Michael Johnston acts his heart out in the role.
Inde Navarette goes on to commit highway robbery and steal the whole film. But the trailers and memes told you that. The film is very deliberate in opening with Johnston’s strongly acted loneliness and despair.
His cat dies. Bear cries. Title card.
The viewer goes into this knowing, “Wow… this guy’s life sucks.”
What would he not give for a wish? One good break?
Navarette’s performance before that is what other reviewers are skipping.
Nikki is a lonely boy’s worst summer heartbreak. She can party and keep up with the boys. She’s funny. She seems to genuinely care about the people around her. It makes her eventual well-memed downfall even more painful for keen-eyed viewers.
When Bear finds out she is leaving their job, after wimping out of confessing when asked directly, he makes a wish.
The one-wish-willow is the film’s monkey’s paw. Barker has said that such was his inspiration in coming up with the device.
But he also makes a clear point that the branch itself is not cursed.
When Bear goes to the shop for it, the clerk merely seems annoyed. Not that his life is in pressing danger.
The branch is also shown granting other wishes just fine. No lives ruined.
It is the wish itself that is demonic.
No one should love anyone more than anyone in the whole world.
And Bear and his friends found that out the hard way.
Codependency: It is one hell of a drug
Barker has denied that demons are in the film.
Nikki moves in reverse. And borrows cues from The Exorcist left and right.
It is certainly an exaggeration.
The film has also been said to be a statement on various mental illnesses.
While borderline personality disorder, anxiety disorders and many more can result in many toxic relationship dynamics, it is a deeply offensive and reductionary viewing of this film.
One that pulls the viewer away from Barker’s strongest point.
How awful codependent relationships are.
No demons required.
Simply Psychology reports that in codependency, “both partners often reinforce and enable each other’s unhealthy patterns, creating a cycle that can be difficult to break.”
This, more than any disorder or demon, is the point of Nikki’s change into “freaky Nikki.”
She constantly tells Bear that she loves him more, that his lack of reciprocity brings her intense uneasiness and that their feelings are not mutual.
They aren’t.
Bear’s wish for a Nikki who loves him more than anyone in the world turns into a devastating curse that ties them together.
Bear and Nikki’s friends are horrified to see them stitched together.
They lament Nikki’s seemingly instant change in personality. They lambast Bear for taking advantage of a poor girl who really seems to be going through something.
This is an exaggerated but clear depiction of how codependent relationships appear on the outside looking in.
Think about who Romeo and Juliet were in your high school. We all had one. The couple that was star-crossed and attached at the hip. Like a film from the 90s.
There are exceptions, of course. But didn’t it always seem kind of like that towards the end?
Weirdly demonic and hateful?
It does not take mental illness per se. It can help. But codependence can sprout in totally neurotypical people.
It makes a point that Bear and Nikki both enter the relationship in grief. Bear for his cat and Nikki (allegedly) over her father’s cancer. Grief can easily be a sort of fog that drives people to act in ways they wouldn’t normally.
It’s a nostalgic forgetfulness. Blurry, painful and foggy.
The film itself flows back to that sort of nostalgia. It gives itself a sort of vague point in time, in a similar fashion to the local classic, It Follows.
Certain sets feel more That 70s Show than modern. The wardrobe pulls from various cliches across decades. The one-wish-willow itself looks straight out of a 1982 knick-knack shop. The work uniforms they wear to work look mad retro.
That’s because, more than anything, codependency is isolating. It leaves one longing for a time, person, place, feeling… a nostalgia. That never really was.
A reflection of society
Horror as a genre has a long relationship with mental health and dark societal trends. Often at the same time. This has been used to explain why the most revolutionary horror is often subversive. It utilizes the grotesque to show the viewer how mundane parts of their lives are terrifying.
They Live! depicts how alien 80s conformity can really be. The Evil Dead reflects a fear of a booming youth culture and the “Satanic Panic.” It Follows is a cautionary tale of when sexually transmitted disease can get demonic — in the age of hookup culture. The Thing uses distrust and alienation to depict the 1980s AIDS pandemic.
Pieces of art that have gone on to revolutionize horror and impact society are always saying something.
The dark mirror held up by Obsession is an isolated one.
It speaks of a passionless and disconnected society so wracked by desolation one might declare an epidemic.
People are so hungry for connection that they are willing to sacrifice the world around them for it.
Obsession earns a clean four and a half boys’ nights (is she mad at you, bro?) out of five.