Year of Release: 2025
Director: Curry Barker
Starring: Inde Navarrette, Michael Johnston, Cooper Tomlinson, Megan Lawless, Andy Richter, Haley Fitzgerald, Darin Toonder, Anthony Pavone, Anthony Casabianca, Chloe Breen
Score out of ten (whole numbers only): 7
Watch it on Amazon
Synopsis and Review
"Obsession", not referring to the Brian De Palma film with the same name released in 1976, has become a cultural phenomenon, particularly the aspect of the narrative of how such a low budget film has managed to outsmart, and outperform the bigger budget films that have premiered alongside it. The film follows the story of Baron Bailey, affectionately named Bear by his friends, who works at a local record store alongside Nikki, Ian, and Sarah. Bear has romantic feelings towards Nikki, but doesn't know how to approach her. He fears she has placed him in a "friend zone", and doesn't even consider him dating material. On one occasion he goes to a crystal shop to buy Nikki a replacement tiger's eye necklace, but ends up buying a "One Wish Willow", a novelty item that claims to grant one wish per person, once broken. Following an interaction with Nikki, where he once again chickens out, he decides to use the wish on himself, and wishes that Nikki loved him more than anything or anyone else. She immediately appears near him, and asks to stay with him over night. They eventually start kissing, but during it, she stops the contact, moves away and screams horrified, as if she has no idea of what is happening. She gets back to normal, but the following morning Bear witnesses a shrine she built honoring his dead cat. She explains her mood swings are from taking MDMA. They start dating and Nikki is at his place all the time. Sarah in the meantime mentions to Bear that Nikki saw him as a "little brother", and this sudden change of heart may hide something more sinister. That night Bear wakes up and is freaked out when he notices Nikki is wide awake and is watching him sleep. The next morning when he goes to work he's surprised that she duct-taped the front door, and from then on the events just start getting more disturbing.
"Obsession" is Curry Barker's sophomore directorial endeavor, and it has already opened a variety of doors for him. Unlike Robert Rodriguez's "El Mariachi", which was a low budget film, and it looked as such, "Obsession" while also low budget, doesn't look like it, and it has an assuredness, polish, and point of view which are hard to dismiss. One can easily try to compare this film with what Osgood Perkins has been doing with his brand of low budget, retro-looking, horror films for Neon (particularly "Longlegs" and "The Monkey"), but Mr. Barker goes in a very different direction. "Obsession" smartly has a progressive disclosure type of narrative, where the characters slowly reveal themselves, and more details about the characters keep emerging as the narrative unfolds. There's some stylistic choices made that are reminiscent of David Cronenberg from the 1980s, but the film retains a freshness and unexpectedness to it, that also brings to mind David Robert Mitchell and his most resounding feature, "It Follows". One of the most successful aspects to this film is the ability the writer/director has to build this universe, trace these characters' lives, and sharply introduce disruption, graphically illustrating extreme behaviors that are unexpected and shocking. This film could have easily been a harrowing look at misogyny and objectification, but instead becomes something else, far more disturbing and quite unforgettable. Much of the success of this film lies with its actors, particularly Inde Navarrette, who is superb in what is almost a dual role. On one hand, she plays the cool and friendly Nikki, and once the supernatural tone kicks in, she becomes something else, a force that stops at nothing and at no-one. Michael Johnston, Cooper Tomlinson, and Megan Lawless, make for suitable scene partners, but Ms. Navarrette is formidable in this film, and definitely someone to pay attention to. The production team is solid, particularly Taylor Clemons cinematography, and Vivian Gray's production design. Worth watching, and definitely sparks the curiosity of what this writer/director is going to do next.
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