Obsession is icky. It’s gross. It’s deeply uncomfortable in ways that stick with you long after the credits roll. But it’s also one of the best films of the year so far.
Directed by Curry Barker on a shoestring budget of less than a million dollars, Obsession takes a premise that sounds almost too familiar. Shy guy (Bear, played by Michael Johnston) is in love with his female best friend (Nikki, played by Inde Navarrette). Add in a wish-granting novelty toy with a “be careful what you wish for” warning, and it turns into something genuinely harrowing. The film earned itself a bidding war at TIFF that landed it at Focus Features for fifteen million dollars, and watching it, you get why A24 and NEON were in the room.
The premise of the film puts you in a recognizable emotional space early. Most people have felt the pangs of unrequited love at some point, and Bear’s early scenes generate a brief flicker of sympathy. That sympathy evaporates pretty fast though. Whether his wish was a desperate, lovesick impulse or something more calculated is left open for interpretation. But what becomes impossible to ignore as the film progresses is Bear’s complete refusal to take accountability for what he has done. As Nikki spirals into something terrifying and tragic, Bear continues to reframe her as the problem, dismissing her behavior as “acting crazy” even as the full horror of what he’s unleashed becomes undeniable. For a film built on a supernatural conceit, its sharpest horror is entirely grounded in reality. Obsession is a film about what happens when a woman’s autonomy is taken from her, and how easily the men around her find ways to avoid naming that for what it is.
That thematic weight lands as hard as it does largely because of Inde Navarrette. Her performance as Nikki is the kind that showcases the depth what a horror film can accomplish. The Academy has a long history of looking away from the genre as a whole – Toni Collette’s work in Hereditary remains one of the most glaring snubs in recent Oscar history – but Navarrette’s work here makes that posture increasingly difficult to defend. What makes the performance exceptional isn’t just the unhinged, terrifying heights she reaches as Nikki’s obsession takes full hold. It’s the subtlety of the early scenes. The nuanced shifts in behavior as the wish begins to take effect, before anything has fully broken loose. And it’s the moments of lucidity, when the real Nikki surfaces briefly through her possession, that are the most devastating of all. A scene in which she returns to herself long enough to beg Bear to kill her rather than remain trapped inside her own body is one of the film’s biggest emotional gut punches, more frightening than any of the film’s brutal set pieces because it is simply, quietly, unbearable.
Michael Johnston as Bear holds his own and anchors the film competently, but Navarrette overshadows him in every shared scene. Notably, that dynamic feels intentional. Bear has idealized Nikki his entire life, and it makes complete narrative sense that she would consume every frame they share.
The horror-comedy balance Barker strikes is genuinely difficult to pull off. The laughs in Obsession are real, but they arrive wrapped in something haunting. It’s the kind of comedy that makes you hesitant to laugh, because the thing that’s funny is also the thing that’s awful. It puts the film in company with Get Out and Hereditary, films whose most terrifying moments aren’t the supernatural flourishes but the recognizable human behavior underneath them. The scariest scene in Hereditary isn’t a ghost. It’s Annie losing her mental faculties through the loss of her daughter. The scariest scene in Get Out isn’t a monster. It’s the unnerving racism Chris faces visiting his girlfriend’s family. The scariest scenes in Obsession aren’t Nikki at her most violent. They’re Nikki at her most lucid.
The film’s ending is somber and hollowing. The plot resolves, but no one comes out the other side intact, and the characters left alive carry the weight of that. You leave the theater a little shell-shocked, which feels exactly right for a film this uncompromising.
“Obsession” is already drawing comparisons to the best horror films of the past decade, and those comparisons are earned. See it. Just be prepared for it to sit with you a bit after the credits stop rolling.
Nathan Smith is a Providence-based music photographer and journalist focusing on capturing the special moments and unfiltered magic of live performances. Whether he’s shooting established artists at sold-out TD Garden shows or documenting the rise of emerging local bands, his goal is the same: to pull viewers directly into the heart of the moment.
His writing spotlights rising artists and local scenes, with a focus on telling the stories that often get overlooked. A lifelong music fan and musician himself, Nathan approaches interviews and portraits as conversations rather than transactions, building trust with artists so their genuine personalities can shine through. Whether he’s backstage, in the photo pit, or at home in front of the keyboard, he brings the same curiosity and care to every assignment.
Outside of his press work with Juice Box Press, Nathan works regularly as a photographer with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, as well as numerous bands in the Boston and Providence area. Nathan also plays violin with a local orchestra, follows Celtics basketball almost religiously, and is an avid fantasy reader.