We’re quickly approaching the purpose the place probably the most dependable path to changing into a horror director is to launch a short-form comedy profession. Jordan Peele shocked the world with “Get Out,” Zach Cregger made it a sample with “Barbarian” and “Weapons,” Danny and Michael Philippou jumped on the practice with “Discuss to Me” and “Deliver Her Again.” Now, YouTube prankster Curry Barker has launched the most effective horror movies of 2025.
“Obsession” begins with the only of horror premises: Bear (Michael Johnston) is a shy and delicate music retailer worker who can’t discover the braveness to ask his co-worker and childhood pal Nikki (Inde Navarrette) on a date. Fairly than be sincere along with her and inform her how he really feels, he wanders right into a woo-woo crystal retailer and buys a One Want Willow, a kitschy vintage toy from the Sixties that guarantees to grant its proprietor one want after they snap a department in half. The cashier warns him that a lot of the clients who purchase them have complained in regards to the outcomes, but it surely wouldn’t be a lot of a horror film if he listened.
After dropping Nikki off at residence after an evening of bar trivia with their different co-workers (and weirding her out along with his try and flirt whereas insisting they’re simply associates), he snaps the willow and makes a easy want: that Nikki would love him greater than something on this planet. It isn’t lengthy earlier than she emerges from her home and asks to go residence with him, and Bear thinks he simply bought a one-way ticket out of the pal zone.
All of the sudden, Nikki is at all times attractive for Bear, is keen to indicate public affection, and spends a lot time with him that she mainly strikes in. For Bear, the brand new association is nice about 99 p.c of the time… the one downside is that Nikki sometimes snaps again into her outdated self and screams in utter terror for a couple of seconds, earlier than resuming the love-bombing.
Even earlier than the film spirals uncontrolled, Bear and Nikki’s mutual associates begin stating how bizarre this all is. The opposite ladies at work heard Nikki speaking about how she noticed Bear as a little bit brother mere hours earlier than she became a lovestruck teenager, and it turns into clear that she’s going by one thing. Rumors begin to fly — guesses vary from drug habit to a full psychological breakdown, however by some means no one guesses “novelty ’60s wish-granting toy with lethal penalties” — however the one factor they will all agree on is that Bear is profiting from a woman in a weak state.
Social connections start to dry up, occasion invites get misplaced within the mail, and Bear quickly finds himself with no one to show to when the brand new Nikki begins stabbing herself with damaged glass, cooking his useless cat, and sealing his doorways with duct tape to stop him from leaving the home. All that he can do is name the customer support line on the again of the bundle — however when he hears that they’ve the soul of the true Nikki screaming for assist, the hopeless romantic realizes that he bit off excess of he might chew.
“Obsession” is proof that the Cregger-ification of 2020s horror is in full impact, as its mixture of sadistic violence, ironic needle drops, and comedy mined from individuals responding to tragedy in pathetically self-serving methods will benefit loads of comparisons to “Barbarian” and “Weapons.” It additionally correctly continues the current development of permitting forces of unexplained evil to easily exist in its world, discovering its social commentary in the best way people react to issues they don’t perceive. As an alternative of turning the precise evils into metaphors.
The movie‘s most compellingly unpredictable thrust lies in Barker’s alternative to inform a narrative of one thing objectively horrible — on this case, a man taking a lady’s whole soul away and turning her right into a psychotic duplicate of herself in order that he can have intercourse along with her physique and fake they’re really relationship — completely from the attitude of the perpetrator. Navarrette delivers a brilliantly twisted efficiency as what’s left of Nikki, however provided that her actual self is caught shrieking in call-center purgatory and solely will get to emerge for seconds at a time, Bear is the human whose eyes we see every little thing by.
A large majority of the horror style is constructed round males doing heinous issues to ladies, with outcomes starting from deeply misogynistic to cathartically feminist. However “Obsession” is constructed round a way more up to date male concern: being the problematic man whose whole social circle is aware of he took benefit of a woman and desires nothing to do with him.
Once we meet Bear, he isn’t some monster simply ready to snap. He’s a delicate man, pissed off by his lack of romantic success, and his heartbreak pushes him to place his personal wishes over his pal’s autonomy simply lengthy sufficient to damage each of their lives. He doesn’t bodily assault her, however he wades right into a morally grey space for purely self-serving functions, clearly haunted by the guilt of the irreversible cycle he set in movement. He additionally hates the truth that his associates are right of their criticisms of him. (The truth that a film like “Obsession” may even exist is proof of the tiniest little bit of social progress, as it will solely work in a society the place males really feel like there are actual social penalties to sexual misconduct.) Barker exhibits him no mercy for his actions, however leaves the door open to darker introspection. For many viewers, the terrifying query shouldn’t be “Might I find yourself like Nikki?” — slightly, it’s, “Might I or somebody I do know be tempted to do what Bear did?”
That’s to not say that what occurs to him is worse than what occurs to her (no less than at first), however Barker virtually appears to be daring his viewers to ask themselves what number of “good guys” within the theater may very well be able to an analogous lapse in judgment underneath sure circumstances. Women and men will expertise two very several types of fears after they take into account the reply, however “Obsession” ought to hold everybody awake lengthy after they get residence from seeing it.
Grade: B+
“Obsession” premiered on the 2025 Toronto Worldwide Movie Pageant. It’s at the moment in search of U.S. distribution.
