Obsession

Be careful about the wishes you make. There's always something lurking about to ensure that you get what you deserve. It's one of the oldest moral frameworks in horror. But Obsession, the feature debut from YouTube prankster turned filmmaker Curry Barker, takes that worn premise and does something genuinely nasty with it.

Bear (Michael Johnston) is a sad sack music store employee stuck in his own head, hopelessly crushing on his coworker and childhood friend Nikki (Inde Navarrette). He's too scared to say anything. We've all been here. Wandering into a metaphysical store, he picks up a novelty "One Wish Willow" and wishes for Nikki to love him more than anything in the world. She does. Way too much. And what follows is one of the most wickedly funny, genuinely unsettling horror films this year.

Barker's genius move is committing fully to the logic of the wish. Magic exists regardless of whether you believe it's real or not. I say this often: it's about the intention you put out into the universe. In Barker's universe, that magic is uncaring darkness that responds to Bear's badly worded AI prompt.

What does it actually look like when someone loves you more than anything in the world? It looks terrifying. It looks like Inde Navarrette doing things with her face and body that should not be physically possible, oscillating between manic dream girl and full-on supernatural threat from scene to scene. Her performance is the heart of this movie. It's a high-wire act, demanding she be charming, funny, horrifying, and heartbreaking, sometimes all at once. She nails it.

The Zach Cregger comparisons are everywhere, and honestly, they're fair. Obsession has that same DNA: dark comedy as a Trojan horse for real horror, escalating dread, needle drops, and a premise that has deeper things to say about people than the surface suggests. Where Barbarian dissected men and spaces and violence, Obsession is picking at something about longing and entitlement and what it actually means to "get the girl." It's not subtle.

The film was shot for under a million dollars and looks like it was a multi-million dollar A24 prestige film. The lighting is especially effective in scenes where Nikki is backlit with only her eyes reflecting light making her look like a demon. Or the way she hides in shadows and skitters across walls. It's unsettling without so much as a single VFX shot.

Also try not thinking about the actual One Wish Willow, where it comes from and what grants wishes. It opens up a much darker realm that the movie only hints at during a disturbing call with its customer service. This movie is funny, cringey and devastating, and ultimately grim but something I keep thinking about nonstop. I'm obsessed.