Written and directed by Curry Barker, Obsession is a supernatural horror film that turns romantic desire into a disturbing examination of control, consent, and emotional dependency. Obsession (2025) premiered at the 2025 Toronto International Film Festival before receiving its wider theatrical release in May 2026. It stars Michael Johnston as Bear, a shy music-store employee, and Inde Navarrette as Nikki, his childhood friend and longtime romantic interest.
Story and screenplay
The screenplay begins with a familiar “be careful what you wish for” premise. Bear discovers a mysterious object called the One Wish Willow and wishes that Nikki will love him more than anyone else. His wish succeeds, but Nikki’s affection quickly becomes obsessive, destructive, and frightening.
What makes the story effective is that the supernatural object is not the film’s real subject. The wish exposes Bear’s flawed understanding of love. He does not initially seek a mutual relationship; he wants Nikki’s feelings to change without her freely choosing him. The horror therefore grows from a violation of consent rather than simply from a magical curse.
Barker also understands the irony of Bear’s situation. Once Nikki becomes completely devoted to him, she begins to lose the independence, intelligence, and personality that attracted him in the first place. The screenplay asks an uncomfortable question: Can love still be meaningful when one person has no freedom to reject the other?
The concept is clear and dramatically productive, although the final section reportedly feels slightly prolonged. At approximately 108–109 minutes, Obsession (2025) loses some of the efficiency established in its opening and middle sections.
Direction and tone
Barker’s strongest achievement is his control of tone. Obsession moves between romantic awkwardness, dark comedy, supernatural unease and graphic violence without becoming an ordinary jump-scare film. The comedy initially makes Bear’s situation relatable, but the humour becomes increasingly cruel as the consequences of his wish emerge.
Rather than explaining every supernatural rule, Barker focuses on the emotional experience of being trapped in an unhealthy relationship. Everyday interactions become frightening because Nikki’s behaviour is unpredictable. A loving gesture can suddenly turn into a threat, a breakdown or an act of violence.
The director’s background in short-form filmmaking is visible in the film’s directness and confidence. However, the feature-length format occasionally reveals a weakness in pacing. Some scenes appear to extend beyond their dramatic peak, particularly in the last act. Nevertheless, the overall direction demonstrates a strong understanding of audience tension and horror timing.
Acting and characterisation
Inde Navarrette’s performance as Nikki is Obsession (2025)’s central creative strength. She must portray several emotional conditions at once: desire, terror, possession, vulnerability and violent instability. Her changing voice, body language, facial expressions and sudden screams transform Nikki from a recognisable young woman into someone who appears physically controlled by an emotion she cannot escape.
Importantly, Navarrette occasionally allows the original Nikki to appear beneath the obsession. These brief moments remind the audience that she is not simply the monster of the story; she is also one of its victims. Critics have particularly praised the physical and emotional intensity of Navarrette’s performance.
Michael Johnston gives Bear an appropriately nervous and ordinary quality. His performance makes the character initially sympathetic without excusing his actions. As the story develops, Bear’s passivity becomes morally troubling. He recognises that Nikki has changed, yet part of him continues to enjoy receiving the attention he once desired. This contradiction prevents him from being either a simple hero or an obvious villain.
Cinematography and production design
The visual approach places the characters inside familiar, everyday environments rather than an elaborate supernatural world. The music store, bedrooms and social spaces initially feel comfortable, but gradually become claustrophobic. This contrast allows horror to enter ordinary life instead of announcing itself through conventional gothic imagery.
Close framing keeps the audience attentive to Nikki’s facial expressions and physical movements. Her presence increasingly dominates the frame, visually communicating Bear’s loss of control. The restrained production design also suits the film’s morality-tale structure: one ordinary decision transforms an ordinary life into a nightmare.
Editing, sound and violence
Barker also edited the film, and the cutting frequently follows an intentionally unstable rhythm. Scenes do not always deliver scares at the expected moment. Instead, pauses, abrupt tonal changes and uncomfortable reaction shots create uncertainty.
Sound is used more aggressively. Screams, bodily impacts and heightened environmental noises make violent moments difficult to escape. Obsession (2025) reportedly uses graphic body horror selectively, preserving its impact rather than allowing gore to become meaningless decoration. The combination of editing and exaggerated sound makes the aftermath of violence as disturbing as the violence itself.
Themes and limitations
At its best, Obsession is about the difference between love and possession. Bear believes that being loved will resolve his loneliness, but forced devotion destroys the person he claims to value. Nikki becomes a manifestation of his fantasy: completely available, endlessly affectionate and incapable of leaving. That fantasy is revealed as fundamentally dehumanising.
The film also examines entitlement within supposedly harmless romantic behaviour. Bear is not introduced as openly dangerous. He appears shy, sensitive and afraid of rejection. The story argues that even apparently gentle desire can become abusive when another person’s autonomy is treated as an obstacle.
Its main thematic limitation is that Nikki’s suffering is largely presented through Bear’s perspective. Although Navarrette’s performance gives the character emotional depth, the screenplay could have explored more fully what Nikki experiences after her identity is taken from her. The film condemns Bear’s behaviour, but occasionally risks reducing Nikki to the frightening consequence of his mistake rather than giving her an equally developed point of view.
Verdict
Obsession succeeds because it connects supernatural horror to a recognisable human weakness: the desire to be loved without accepting the vulnerability of asking, waiting and possibly being rejected. Its premise is simple, but Barker develops it through committed performances, destabilising editing, dark humour and carefully controlled violence.
Despite some pacing problems and an underdeveloped female perspective, it is an effective and provocative horror film. From a filmmaker’s viewpoint, its most valuable lesson is that a modest concept can become cinematically powerful when every creative department—writing, performance, framing, editing and sound—serves the same central idea.
Critical assessment: 4 out of 5 stars.