"Obession" Review

 2026 will probably go down as the year YouTube surpassed film schools for turning out wildly successful new filmmakers. The warning shot came in January with Iron Lung by YouTuber Mark "Markiplier" Fischbach which he directed, wrote, edited, and starred in, self-funding the $3M production and grossing a (then) stunning $51 million.

But the earthquakes came in May as a tag-team of original horror movies completely upended the natural order of things with Backrooms - an adaptation of a series of YouTube shorts helmed by their creator, 20-year-old Kane Parsons, raking in $350M off a $10M budget, making it A24's highest-grossing movie ever - coming two weeks after the word-of-mouth phenomenon Obsession blew Hollywood's collective mind by surpassing its projected opening weekend gross then increasing it's take the following two weekends; the first film since (I think) E.T. - The Extraterrestrial to accomplish this feat and that was by Steven Spielberg, director of Jaws, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and Raiders of the Lost Ark, not a 27-year-old YouTuber. Produced for a rounding error for Hollyweird $750,000, as of this writing it has grossed $407 million worldwide and turned its star into a early Oscar nomination shoo-in.

How much of a word-of-mouth hit was it? We met up with a friend about a month after it'd opened and almost right off without prompting he asked if we'd seen it, raving that it actually lived up to the hype. We didn't get a chance to see it in the theaters, but now that it's streaming we checked it out and, yep, believe the hype.

 The premise is so simple it could've been inspired by a Treehouse of Horror episode of The Simpsons where they parodied The Monkey's Paw short story. (It was!) Bear (Michael Johnston) has a major crush on his coworker Nikki (Inde Navarrette) at the music store they work with their friends Ian (Cooper Tomlinson) and Sarah (Megan Lawless), the daughter of the owner, Carter (Andy Richter). The movie opens with Bear attempting to rehearse telling Nikki his feelings with the others, but he's such a sweaty dork they advise against it.

Bear's cat dies from eating oxycodone pills that his late grandma, whose house he now lives in, took. (This is the least realistic detail in the movie. Every try to give a cat a pill? Exactly. It should've been a dog; they eat anything.) While talking to Nikki on the phone she mentions dropping her tiger's eye necklace down the drain, so being the simp he is, he goes to a shop to buy her a replacement, but instead buys her a One Wish Willow, a novelty that promises to give the person who breaks it one wish. (Duh.) 

He ends up not giving it to her when he drives her home after the pals hang out. When she confronts him whether he has feelings for her, he chickens out and denies he does, not that she hasn't already clearly friendzoned him so hard it's visible from orbit. Disgusted with himself, he opens the One Wish Willow and wishes that Nikki loved him more than anyone in the world. *SNAP*

Big. Mistake.

She immediately begins to throw herself at him, but it's weird as she seems to snap in and out of being in love with him and seeming confused as to what's going on. Things settle into a comfy couplehood and he gets to enjoy plenty of the benefits of being a friend with benefits, but things begin to veer into somewhat concerning to downright horrifying territory as Nikki's obssessive love for Bear begins to manifest in increasingly harmful ways.

While it'd be easy to be reductive and dumbly claim Obsession is a commentary about toxic men wanting dominion over women's bodies (as many feminists Karens squawked because everything is about being a victim), but it's really just a simple morality tale about unintended consequences. While Bear has entranced Nikki into loving him, he's quickly gnawed at by the understanding that this is wrong and tries to figure out how to free her even when it's supposedly everything he wanted.

Director-writer-editor Curry Barker's script actually fleshes out Ian and Sarah and their relationships with Bear and Nikki so that they're part of this crazy situation especially during a group party scene where a game of Truth or Dare Jenga gets out of hand. They have their own goals and cares, so their fates aren't just superfluous window dressing for the main couple.

The lions share of praise has rightfully gone to Navarrette as she conveys the various states of Nikki's deterioration as her true self tries to break free from the spell the willow has placed on her. She's a very cute actress - she's like a darker, sexier Anna Kendrick - but throws herself fully into the complicated role. After Amy Madigan's Best Supporting Actress win for Weapons, a far less demanding role than Nikki, it appears the Academy is loosening up in its bias against genre movies and Navarrette is already talked up for a Best Actress slot. Considering the success of Obsession rests primarily on her shoulders and ability to make the audience connect with this poor young woman, she'd darn well better get a nom. 

Other than quibbles about the handling of the cat, Obsession is a rare horror movie that elevates the form with a sharp script and performances. If we'd seen it at the show, I would've given it the highest "Pay full price" when to see it rating, but now that it's streaming (it should eventually land on Peacock soon), I give it the score below and my highest recommendation. 

Score: 9/10. Catch it on cable/streaming.