Directors: Curry Barker
Writers: Curry Barker
If you could make the girl or guy of your dreams, the person you have a crush on, love you in an instant, even if it’s fake, would you take that? Would you be okay with the non-consensual love, as long as you’re getting the dream romance you’ve desired in your head? These are the questions that Obsessions seems to be asking. A new horror film from YouTuber-turned-filmmaker Curry Baker, which is a standout for the year.
Michael Johnston plays Bear, an anxious, timid and somewhat lonely guy who has a crush on one of his best friends, Nikki, with a powerhouse performance from Inde Navarrette. The film begins with him practising a conversation to confess his feelings to her, but when the moment comes, he’s too much of a coward to go through with it. Insert Obsession’s supernatural twist, as Bear makes a wish with a ‘One Wish Willow’ for Nikki to “love him more than anyone else in the world,” and the change in her is almost instant.
At first, Nikki is odd, and her change in behaviour and sudden interest in Bear is explained as her dealing with a recent family sickness. But she is the one to confess her sudden feelings and love for Bear, and he accepts it, at first. He doesn’t want to second-guess the arrival of the girl he’s dreamed of having as his for all these years. But the honeymoon phase wears off quickly, as her love for him is possessive and obsessive, and it can be quite odd and scary at times. These include moments of her being upset that he left her home alone while he went to work, and standing at the door, motionless, all day, to her waking up in the middle of the night and watching him sleep from the bedroom corner because Bear “looks so cute while he sleeps.”
At first, you can look past Bear not looking into the odd behaviour or questioning its reality. But it soon becomes obvious that he’s disregarding the whole situation. He knows that the Nikki in front of him now isn’t the same Nikki he supposedly loves. The girl we meet at the start of the film is free-spirited, wanting to get out of the job she works alongside Bear to pursue something bigger, and she has a big heart, stopping to talk to and give money to people experiencing homelessness. Now she’s something else entirely, and someone who is violently obsessed with protecting, keeping, and trapping Bear with her at all times.
How and why Bear chooses to accept Nikki the way she is raises questions around consent, and the way in which boys are currently being raised to love their wives by the manosphere groups of influencers, supposedly. I’m sure they would say it’s perfectly fine to trick the girl you want into being submissive, and the fact that she wants to know life of her own, but to cook and clean, and stay home and be ready for you at all times is great. It’s the trad-wife dream they sell for millions each year. But with Obsession, the films give you a better sense of the psychological turmoil someone trapped in a relationship they don’t want to be in may feel. The in-fighting and literal scream for help, while the body puts on the big smiles for all those watching.
As mentioned before, Inde Navarrette is sensational in Obsession and is genuinely one of the better performances I’ve seen all year. She gives herself over to a big, dark performance here, making Nikki both scary and increasingly sorry as the film progresses.
I was quite impressed by how good Obsession looked, and it’s not just because of its 4:3 ratio, which adds a more claustrophobic feeling to the film, but also the cinematography in general. The film doesn’t look like other horror films, and the use of, or lack of, much colour, paired with fantastic lighting, all elevated the film’s dark and rather sinister undertones.
Coming into Obsession, I’d assumed this would be more of a psychological horror than one with actual blood. However, the film still manages to have one truly shocking scene, one rather bloody sequence that really grabs you by the back of the head and sends you for a ride, paired with several other smaller bloody ones. They all come as a bigger surprise and are more horrifying, thanks to the randomness of their occurrence and the buildup to the scenes. But it’s one scene in particular I wouldn’t be surprised to see on some “most bloody moments of 2026 horror films” lists later in the year.
When I left the cinema after watching Obsession, I couldn’t stop thinking about it, and there’s something to be said for listening in on the conversations others are having about this film as they leave the cinema; it’s a joy in itself. It’s a dark film that, although featuring at least a few comedic moments, is by far more interested in making you as uncomfortable as possible. And I don’t mean for the violence; it is bound to keep you up past your bedtime the first time you watch — I should know, because that’s exactly why I’m writing this review– later at night, after finishing the film.
