Maleficent Obsession 

It is that time of year again and after jumping ahead to the spooky season with last week's post, I'm ready for a rip-roaring month of witches, ghosts, goblins and all-around weirdness. Today, I'm starting off with another young director's debut feature film, Obsession, released in theaters last May, and grossing a whopping $519m at the worldwide box office so far. 27-year-old Curry Barker, like Kane Parsons in my previous post, also began his career on YouTube. After moving on from his sketch comedy channel, Barker wrote and directed the 62-minute horror thriller Milk and Serial in 2024 for a grand total of $800. Failing to find a studio willing to distribute his film, Barker uploaded it to YouTube where you can still view it for free. After going viral, Milk and Serial garnered significant attention from Hollywood and, thus, led to the movie we're discussing today.  

Owing a major debt to W.W. Jacob's 1902 short story, The Monkey's Paw, Obsession builds itself around the old adage be careful what you wish for. The film's basic premise is a trope that's kicked around Hollywood, in one form or another, for decades, but Curry Barker's take is, perhaps, the most audacious. The film's male lead, Bear, is a shy, young music store employee infatuated with hot, out-of-his-league co-worker, Nikki. Along with fellow employees Ian and Sarah, they're a quartet of friends who hang out at the local bar after work, trading confidences and offering unsolicited advice to one another. 

The beginning of the film finds Bear sitting in the booth of a diner, awkwardly explaining his amorous feelings to a young woman who turns out to be a stand-in for Nikki. In order to prep Bear for his big moment, Ian has staged a rehearsal with one of the waitresses, who listens sympathetically as Bear pours his heart out. Not entirely satisfied with Bear's performance, Ian decides it will have to do so the men make plans for Bear to speak to Nikki when the gang meets up at the bar later that night. In the interim, Bear comes home to find his beloved cat has gotten into his bottle of oxycodone and is lying dead near its bowl. A grief-stricken Bear cancels on the group until an unsuspecting Nikki (at Ian's urging) persuades him to make an appearance. 

Once at the bar, Bear attempts to get Nikki alone but keeps getting interrupted or backing out until he finally gives up and goes home. At work the next day, he is further needled by Ian to make his move but, lacking the courage to do so, stops off at an occult supply shop and picks up a novelty item called a One-Wish Willow, a "special" stick that grants its holder a single wish when the stick is broken in half. Thinking himself silly, Bear buries the stick in his backpack and heads out to join his friends. 

By the end of the evening, they're all pretty well wasted and Bear winds up driving Nikki home. Once they pull up outside Nikki's house, Bear attempts to open up about his emotions but can't quite bring himself to do it. After all, there's a very good chance the young woman simply views him as a friend, and might be appalled to hear how he really feels about her. And rightly so, as it ultimately turns out. Lacking the courage to be honest with Nikki, Bear watches, frustrated and filled with self-disgust, as she walks up the sidewalk to her house. Figuring he has nothing to lose he takes out the One-Wish Willow and snaps it, wishing that Nikki would love him more than anyone else in the world. 

And so it comes to pass but not in the way Bear imagined. Nikki is transformed from cool, inaccessible beauty to overly devoted girlfriend to emotional mess to wailing, murderous banshee who won't let anyone get in the way of her and her man. Often these changes occur within the span of a few seconds. 

On Nikki's day off, Bear kisses her goodbye--after tearing loose the duct tape she's used to barricade him inside the house--and later returns home from work to find her still standing in the same spot, covered in her own waste. It's a terrifying spectacle, indeed, and one Bear seems incapable of stopping once he comes to the horrifying realization that everything that is happening is his fault, not Nikki's. And all because he bought that damn One-Wish Willow, which he never believed would work in the first place. Or did he? No matter, because Bear is not getting off the hook easily, if at all. When he calls the toll-free number listed on the back of the stick's box, he's told by the CSR that the only way the spell can be reversed is if he dies. Needless to say, this is not on his list of possible solutions, so he quickly discards that idea, and decides to live with the mess he's created. And what an inglorious mess it is! 

Bear's inability to confide to anyone the real reason for Nikki's abrupt change in personality finds him isolated and sick with despair. Worse, her acts of violence towards herself, and threats against others hint at the film's dark finale to come. 

And yet, as scary as Obsession is, it's also often quite funny (in a morbid sort of way). The director's jet-black sense of humor permeates the film, and Curry Barker never loses his way. It's a smart movie with layers of meaning hidden beneath what could have been a very scratchy surface. 

It's easy to cast Nikki as the villain in the piece, but I'm not sure that the film has a real, honest-to-god villain. Nikki is not actually Nikki thanks to Bear's wish but it's hard to accuse him of being the bad guy when all he wants is a little lovin' from his dream girl. Even if the process robs her of her autonomy (according to feminist readings of the film, which I can't disagree with). He's actually pretty selfish when you come to think about it, but that doesn't stop you from feeling sorry for the guy.  

Actor Michael Johnston (best known for the MTV series Teen Wolf) and Inde Navarette (the CW's Superman and Lois) make an excellent team. He's completely convincing as the cute, longing nerd suddenly faced with a catastrophe well beyond his pay grade. And Navarette's Nikki is a force to be reckoned with: it's as if all the demons from hell climbed into her nubile frame and set her loose on an unsuspecting world. In certain scenes she's utterly terrifying but, often as not, there's a darkly, darkly comedic payoff that either leavens or intensifies the horror happening onscreen, depending on your outlook and intestinal fortitude (there's a not-inconsiderable amount of gore in the movie). Curry's former comic partner, Cooper Tomlinson is fun (until he's not) as pushy loud-mouth Ian, and Megan Lawless as Sarah gets too little screen time but when her big scene finally comes--well let's just say it's memorable. 

There are a cache of hidden details in Obsession, some of which went right over my head during yesterday's viewing. So now I guess I'm going to have to watch it again with an eye out for all these hidden goodies nestled like Easter eggs in a basket of dread.