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After buying a ‘One Wish Willow’ novelty item that grants a wish, a young man named Bear (Michael Johnston) is shocked to discover his wish came true: the apple of his eye, Nikki (Inde Navarrette), now loves him more than anyone else in the whole world. But her love turns out to be a dangerous, suffocating love that transforms the once sweet-natured young woman into an obsessive, terrifying monster. She watches him sleep and waits by the door for him to come home from work. Eventually, she becomes insane with paranoia whenever Bear is out of her sight. And anyone she perceives to be vying for his affection does so at mortal peril. As her supernatural devotion turns his life into a nightmare and begets a body count, Bear learns the only way to undo the wish and restore Nikki to her former self is as grim as the prospects of being her love-slave forever.
Obsession features strong performances from Johnston and Navarrette, but the screenplay only develops their characters through the first act. Navarrette is particularly fearless as Nikki, a woman who is essentially demonically possessed. The film calls on her to deliver a repetitious series of histrionics. Nikki invariably gets quiet and spooky, and then suddenly does a big, loud, flashy thing every ten minutes — whether it’s pissing her pants, screaming like a banshee, or popping up out of nowhere for the kill. The acting is compelling enough to win some awards, even if the character experiences no growth or evolution.
Once the fateful wish is granted, the remainder of the film’s run time falls into a predictable pattern of jump scares and indulgent ‘shock moments’ designed to keep younger generations from checking their phones. Writer/director Curry Barker, a YouTube creator hitting it big with Obsession‘s record-breaking box office performance, relies too much on painfully loud sound effects and annoyingly dark cinematography. The first half-hour does a good job setting up sympathetic Gen Z characters, but any message or meaning gets sidelined once Barker commits to the rinse-and-repeat shock cycle.
Descents into Hell can be devilishly good fun, but Obsession felt hollow and performative to me, and the concept feels uninspired — isn’t there a version of this story in every sci-fi or horror anthology series ever created? There’s certainly a place in our cinematic diets for shock-exploitation flicks like this, but for me, Obsession just doesn’t live up to its astounding box office reputation and phenomenal word-of-mouth.
With Cooper Tomlinson, Megan Lawless, and Andy Richter.