Time: 109 Minutes
Age Rating: R16 – Violence, horror, sex scenes, offensive language, suicide & content that may disturb
Cast:
Michael Johnston as Bear
Inde Navarrette as Nikki
Cooper Tomlinson as Ian
Megan Lawless as Sarah
Andy Richter as Carter
Director: Curry Barker

I’ve been aware of Obsession for multiple months: the low budget horror movie that was a surprise hit with a spectacular performance from Inde Navarrette. I’ve been hearing about it long enough that I basically heard about the whole movie online. Eventually, I checked the movie out and overall, I did like it. At the same time, it’s not surprising that I think it’s pretty far from being one of the best horror movies in recent years, or even one of the best horror movies of this year.

Obsession did have some things going for it. I appreciated how simplistic the movie was, it didn’t waste time trying to explain the One Wish Willow, and it also kept things a mystery. I also appreciated that it was different from a typical monkey’s paw plot device, in the sense that the problem didn’t come inherently from the wishing device, but the problem instead came from the wish itself. There are some ideas here about toxic masculinity and coercion and it’s even a bit of a play on romcoms. It also really succeeds at keeping you uncomfortable from beginning to end, and I can always appreciate a horror movie that’s actively committed to being very mean. It even has some unexpected comedy gags which effectively punctuates the built up dread and horror. I think my primary issue with Obsession is that there’s just not much to it. For one, the characterisation of everyone is pretty thin. Even with the limited cast, the few characters don’t feel much like fleshed out people. The character of Nikki only manages to be something of an exception because Inde Navarrette’s performance does add depth and nuance to the character that wasn’t there in the writing. I get that the protagonist Bear feeling so empty and bland is on purpose. But him not doing much for a large portion played a notable part of the movie feeling like it’s not really moving anywhere for much of it. I was marginally paying attention to the movie for the first half, then at around the halfway point it got to a point where it couldn’t really explore or do anything else. So it was in a constant repeat of ‘Nikki’ doing something unhinged and Bear being freaked out and yet doing nothing, until it got to the third act. Obsession is only an hour and 50 minutes in length, but for how little ground it covered, even that felt too long.

Obsession may be a movie of ideas, but it doesn’t actually do a lot with them. The movie’s biggest asset is Nikki: her life and body being taken from her being the most effective and disturbing horror aspect of the film, and the movie is at its strongest whenever she’s on screen. It is strange then that the movie doesn’t really want to focus on her through this. I’m not as harsh on this choice because the movie is at least conscious about this being Bear’s own fault, and that Nikki’s behaviour and actions aren’t even from her, but instead some entity taking over her body. Still, I would be lying if I said that the movie wasn’t kneecapping itself by fully framing the whole movie through Bear’s perspective. While the horror of everything being taken from Nikki is very much on the back of this movie’s mind, most of the horror in the forefront comes from her being the “crazy woman who is suddenly crazy and doing crazy things”, and specifically how this affects Bear. The aspect of her acting weird and crazy as the main source of horror also isn’t scary in itself as a concept, it’s more in the way Navarrette plays Nikki in such an effectively uncanny way that it works in spite of it. Obsession is also very in your face with how disturbing it’s trying to be and actively trying to gross you out. Yes, there’s some effective gore and loud moments, but it’s the more subtle uncanny and skin crawling moments that lingered, and I wished that the movie leaned more towards those types of moments instead.

Michael Johnston does well at playing the protagonist, Bear. His range is limited and he feels bland, but it’s a performance that works perfectly for the character, especially one who really becomes more hateable as the film continues. Inde Navarrette is fantastic, she is the one aspect of the movie which I believed fully lived up to the hype and acclaim. Despite my criticisms of the movie, she makes some of those aspects work, and it would’ve been far worse without her. First of all, despite much of Obsession being very reliant on “scary woman acting crazy” as the main source of the horror, she plays it very well. She absolutely sells the uncanny nature, expressions, and voice/line deliveries of ‘Nikki’ that she grabs your attention every time. Not only that, she also added a lot of humanity and depth to the character that the movie otherwise didn’t really provide. It’s definitely among the best horror performances of recent years. I may have some mixed feelings about the movie, but I do think it’s at least worth watching for her work here. The rest of the cast are serviceable, but they fare much worse than the other two due to their thin characterisation.

Obsession is a pretty admirable debut for Curry Barker and I’m interested to see what he does next, because he certainly has potential. You can tell that it’s a low budget movie, but they did a lot with what they had. It’s well shot, and a lot of the minimal lighting, shadows and camerawork really added to the creepy atmosphere. The way Nikki is presented particularly stands out, one scene had Nikki in darkness with the lighting reflecting off her eyes, and I also loved the uncanny way she moves in some scenes. The music is a little overbearing especially as the movie continues. I was fine with the overly sappy ‘romantic’ musical tracks, it actually worked because it was almost like a dark satirical take on romantic comedies. When it was trying to be overly scary and booming during ‘scary’ scenes, it just felt overbearing and unnecessary, especially when the rest of the direction is effective enough that it didn’t need it.

Obsession is underdeveloped, thin and not the most engaging, but is an unnerving and uncomfortable enough horror movie, well directed, and elevated by an amazing performance from Inde Naverrette.