A low-budget exercise that expertly finds terror of the soul in thwarted love, Obsession arrives this weekend as the indie film you don’t want to miss. Never mind the lack of big-name stars and the story being yet another one about a weak, defective man who accidentally gives himself his comeuppance. This is a scary entry in the long tradition of tales about the dangers of gaining your heart’s desire.
Our protagonist is Bear (Michael Johnston), and there couldn’t be a less appropriate name for this meek music-store clerk who nurses a hopeless crush on his co-worker Nikki (Inde Navarrette). Even when she asks him straight out whether he has feelings for her, he denies it, and then fails to take the subtle hint in her muttered response: “Thank God.” In an occult gift shop, he finds a “One Wish Willow” that grants its owner a single wish when it’s broken and also plays music when it’s taken out of the box. Bear buys one for the low, low price of $6.99, wishes for Nikki’s eternal love, and snaps it.
Results are instantaneous, and communicated in an eerie shot of Nikki, who had already gone back into her house but is now seen standing out on her front porch, with the porch light behind her obscuring her features. Writer-director Curry Barker is fond of putting the possessed Nikki in heavy shadow thus, particularly when she later shows up at Bear’s door in a sexy red dress and tells him that she’s always loved him. Her eyes manage to sparkle even though the light behind her has cast into complete darkness. How’d they film that?
Then, too, there’s a superb scare when Bear wakes up at 3:45 a.m. to find Nikki standing in the far corner of the bedroom and staring at him from the gloom. When he asks her what she’s doing, she moans, “I don’t like my dreams!”, a prelude to an unhinged rant about how she loves him more than he loves her. Another bedroom scene acquires a ghostly power when Nikki’s original spirit manages to break free while the new Nikki is asleep, and begs Bear to kill her. Navarrette comes from the TV shows 13 Reasons Why and Superman & Lois, and though she’s only 5’0”, she is quite terrifying depicting Nikki’s metamorphosis from level-headed (if somewhat hard-edged) woman to ultra-clingy demon who’s willing to murder anyone who comes between her and her man.
Like many horror filmmakers these days, Barker comes from a comedy background, and his 2024 debut film Milk & Serial is available for free on YouTube. (He’s also no relation to Clive Barker, as far as I can tell.) He has some trouble sustaining his concept over feature length, and so the film’s second half resorts too often to Nikki’s violent outbursts directed at everyone around Bear.
Yet while movies like these often fall down at the climax, Obsession’s is fiendishly well done, as Nikki gets hold of her own wish stick at the same time that Bear plots to lift the curse from her in a way that just happens to be incredibly traumatic. The change that comes over the last victim before they die is a haunting touch that sends you out of the theater with an indelible chill and the lone survivor’s screams echoing across the closing credits.
Obsession
Starring Michael Johnston and Inde Navarrette. Written and directed by Curry Barker. Rated R.
