Box office hit and indie horror phenomenon Obsession by Curry Barker has been dominating the online discourse about what makes theatre-going experiences so exciting, but also how the horror genre can reflect a twisted truth about our society through the screen. Despite being out for a few months now, the discussions about Obsession are still very much ongoing. It just released recently on digital, and it is now streaming on Peacock, and a lot of people are rewatching it at home. Some people are even watching it in theatres for a second or third time, and the film just surpassed $400 million at the global box office. Even with this huge commercial success, I still feel uncomfortable and on edge when I think about the premise of the film.
This original horror film, written, directed, and edited by Curry Barker, centers around a young man named Bear (Michael Johnston) who seems to believe he’s madly in love with his coworker and close friend, Nikki (Inde Navarrette). Unable to express this to her without supernatural intervention, he breaks a "One Wish Willow" wishing for her to love him "more than anything." Anything: including herself. Yes, there’s gore and jump scares, and a flinchy theatre makes it scarier with their reactions. However, there were moments in the film where people in the theatre were laughing while I thought they were the scariest and most disturbing parts of the entire thing.
The entitlement and complete lack of care from Bear’s character make his "biggest" wish come to life with ill and therefore evil intentions. Fully taking away Nikki’s say in the situation, he strips her of her autonomy and submits her to a "supernatural" force that controls her beliefs and actions to get what he wants from her. And contrary to some people online who think it's a "controversial" opinion, I don’t find anything controversial in stating that Bear is the real villain or "evil" in the story. Barker himself has stated that there isn’t a "demonic" nature to the possession Nikki is experiencing. The evil in the film can therefore be rooted in a person making a permanent decision over someone else’s life and body for personal gain.
Navarrette’s performance as Nikki was unbelievable, and the body horror in the film was terrifying, but the true horror was right in our faces the entire time: when she loses her freedom and autonomy. The second Bear snapped the willow branch, Nikki’s mind and body were no longer under her control and were then programmed only to fulfill his wish no matter the cost. At first, Bear seemed worried about her, which has convinced audiences that he might be redeemable. He was fully aware of the drastic change Nikki went through as a person in a matter of minutes that made her desire him out of nowhere. Despite knowing her well as a friend, he convinced himself to believe whatever she said because it was more convenient for him to do so and would allow him to "have" her.
Revealing the least amount of details, I will just say that there were many opportunities, even after making this terrible thing happen, for Bear to choose gentleness, truth, or kindness, but he managed to even gaslight himself to make the most of it and avoid being held accountable. Irredeemable all the way. He would momentarily get the courage to do whatever the "right" thing would be in that given situation, but would backtrack when it cost him too much. Instead, he paraded her around until it became a nuisance and real danger to him. When he was able to communicate with the real Nikki, reality would strike him and make him feel small, but when the other Nikki would reassure him, he then ignored the pain he knew she was in from when he talked to the real her.
The uncanny valley makeup, unsettling expressions, jump scares, violence, and intense bursts of Nikki being unhinged were scary, sure. But for me, it was the moments she would snap back into her body from this "possession" for a second that you could feel how grotesque it was that she wasn’t in control of herself the entire time. She would scream and freak out in horror, even begging Bear to kill her to put her out of her misery. She would recite dark and poetic lines about death and control, from a dark and twisted telling of "Hansel and Gretel" to expressive monologues that seemed to have some of the real Nikki’s writing and thoughts tainted with the horror of her situation. This whole idea of people around them being worried that Bear was "taking advantage" of her while she was going through some sort of "mental breakdown" recurs through the film, with Bear denying it every time. But just because of the mere nature of his wish, he was.
If Bear said that something was or wasn’t wrong, Nikki would overcompensate in an intense way to make up for it and please him. Those moments made people in the theatre around me giggle. They gasped and were scared during scenes written to intentionally scare the audience: Nikki running or twisting her body or screaming. But you can get that type of scary in many other horror films. That is why Obsession carries a heavier weight, in my opinion. Because it is a brutal representation of a woman being abused and having to pay and go through all of that because of a scared and careless man without retribution.
