‘Obsession’ Movie Review: Love-Spell Horror Indie Amuses, Unsettles, And Upsets
Photo from Focus Featurs
From Jeremy Kibler
Bleakly and uncomfortably amusing at times but also mercilessly tragic and smartly layered, Curry Barker’s feature debut Obsession hurts — which is the right feeling when you’re a true fan of this genre. A piece of uncanny horror, melding a “be careful what you wish for” morality tale with stalker-thriller tropes taken to extremes, it unsettles and upsets. Making an auspicious calling card for himself with cleverly disturbing YouTube-released found-footage film Milk & Serial, the sketch comic showcases a complete command of his tone with this wickedly anti-romantic tale about a love spell gone horribly wrong.
Meek twentysomething Bear (Michael Johnston) has had a longtime crush on his classmate Nikki (Inde Navarette), with whom he also works at a musical instrument store. It’s obvious to his two close friends and co-workers, Ian (Cooper Tomlinson) and Sarah (Megan Lawless), but Nikki most likely sees Bear more as a brother. When Bear goes to a metaphysical store to replace Nikki’s lost crystal necklace, he instead picks up a “One Wish Willow” stick. On a whim, after giving Nikki a ride home, Bear breaks the stick and makes a wish that his crush would love him more than anyone else in the world. Sure enough, that wish comes true, but the results are not so lovely. What the fuck is wrong with Nikki?
In Obsession, death follows Bear from the word go, as he comes home to his cat Sandy dead on the floor from ingesting his prescribed medication. What’s truly frightening about Obsession is not just Nikki being a newly obsessed, needy, clingy, and altogether insane girlfriend to Bear. There is that, obviously, but underneath the surface, there’s also a heartbreaking lack of consent in this fantastically made-true relationship and the only solution to the wish is as grim as death. There’s something brutally human yet cruel about how it all works out. Even hardened horror fans may be shocked by the startlingly grisly payoff to a scene between friends just talking in a car at night.
An effortlessly magnetic find, Inde Navarette is truly astounding, throwing herself into the before and after of Nikki. Switching on a dime from the cool, feisty girl next door to the craziest girlfriend ever with a few physical glitches, she turns in an alternately playful, unsettling, wildly but perfectly calibrated performance. What is asked of Navarette never seems like an easy task—she is playing a prisoner after all—and her technique in managing mood swings becomes a masterclass. Balancing an empathetic fragility with selfish desire, Bear is both the hero of the story and arguably the villain, and it’s that groundedness in human behavior that makes this fantastical premise easier to buy into. Michael Johnston illuminates the most decent parts in Bear but also magnifies his worst traits without making him any less identifiable.
Helping one buy into this scenario is that the two leads and supporting players are all played by fresh faces who look like real people and not movie stars. Andy Richter is the one name actor in a bit role as Sarah’s father who somehow is able to pay all four friends, plus others, at a small music store.
Using a narrative about the repercussions of a wish, writer-director Curry Barker’s script remains surprising yet surprisingly simple without overcomplicating any of the lore behind the wish bone. On a modest-to-low budget, Barker does a lot with a little. Cinematographer Taylor Clemons makes effective use of shadow and at-the-neck framing, bringing thought and care to his imagery, and besides maybe one too many jarring smash cuts from loud musical crescendos to silence, Rock Burwell’s score is an eerie drone of mood.
Everything ends so horrifically that this is the kind of horror film that knocks the wind out of you. Unlike its seemingly derivative title, Obsession is a dread-inducer that sticks with you and almost makes you want to die alone.
Rating: 4/5
Obsession is currently in theaters.
