Obsession Review

“Do you think I’m pretty?” – Nikki

Another film that caught my interest from my first sight of the trailer. At first glance, with only a cursory synopsis, you could easily think you’ve seen this trope before, I sure have – thinking specifically of a first season Twilight Zone episode called Young Man’s Fancy. In that episode, a young man is smitten with a girl who’ll barely give him the time of day, he uses a love potion to make her fall for him, but isn’t prepared for the consequences of his actions when she won’t leave him alone.

It’s a familiar trope, the one that goes “be careful what you wish for”. A trope, incidentally that was mined pretty well in the Twilight Zone. But I’ve never seen it cut as disturbingly and unsettlingly deep as it does in this movie. This is a whole new level of messed up. I’ve been thinking that there was a likelihood that Lee Cronin’s The Mummy would be THE classic horror movie of the year, until I saw Obsession. (And from the trailer I saw, the upcoming Evil Dead Burn should be on that same list.)

This might beg the question; are horror movies actually getting more disturbing, or am I becoming somehow more sensitive in my twilight years? Well, while horror movies are continually able to surprise, un-nerve and provide some shocks, I’ll keep on showing up to see them because they’re doing exactly what I’m paying for. That’s as far as I’m going to analyse my mental state.

So, I’d been looking forward to Obsession with a kind of anticipatory glee. I managed to work the screening times in a way that allowed a double bill with Mortal Kombat II. (There’ll be coverage of Mortal Kombat II on episode 79 of Piercing the Veil, scheduled for May 29.) The screening was only three days after its theatrical release and word of mouth I was hearing and reading was pretty awesome. Time to see for myself.

Bear (short for Baron) played by Michael Johnson is a nervous, ordinary guy. He’s employed at a music shop, and is desperately trying to get into a romantic relationship with his childhood friend, Nikki (Inde Navarrette) whom he’s had a crush on for years – but he’s irredeemably in the friend zone. His attempts to ask her on a date are cringingly strained, and despite exhaustive rehearsing, he can never quite manage to get his point across. Nikki is oblivious to his feelings, but not in a cruel, thoughtless way.

Looking in a small shop for a crystal necklace to replace one that Nikki has just lost, Bear sees a novelty item and buys that instead. This is called a One Wish Willow, basically a twig in a package that if you snap it in half, it grants you one wish.

His wish is obvious; “I wish Nikki loved me more than anyone in the world”. And this is the point where the trope is taken where I’ve never seen it taken before, albeit the descent into chaos is chaotically logical. Nikki loses her independent mind and can only think of Bear, being parted from Bear becomes unbearable (sorry – couldn’t resist that one) and she’ll do literally ANYTHING not to be parted from him, to the point that when he needs to go to work, in total frustration because she has duct taped the door shut, he commands her to stay where she is until he comes home at the end of the day. Un-nerving isn’t the word when she stands exactly where she is with the exact same expression for the whole day, standing in her own excreta.

Inde Navarro deserves every bit of the credit that has to be coming her way with her powerhouse performance in this film. I’ve previously seen her in the Superman & Lois TV series where she played girl next door type Sarah Cushing and she starts Obsession hitting that same likeable note. However, as the supernatural power of the wish takes hold, her behaviour veers from friendly toward affectionate, then clingy, possessive, insanely jealous, suspicious, manipulative, stalkery, self-harming and deadly. Her descent to helpless insanity is played out in front of our eyes – convincingly. As her behaviour becomes more and more erratic, Bear becomes more frazzled and desperate – he has an uncanny resemblance to Bruce Campbell in Evil Dead 2 as he realises he’s bitten off way more than he can chew and there’s no easy solution.

Nikki’s sudden 180-degree mood changes which can happen within the scope of a sentence being uttered are scary as hell. From smiles to screaming accusations and violent outbursts to repeated strikes to her own face with a brick.

This is definitely not a film for the nervous or the faint at heart, but horror/suspense audiences will lap it up. Writer/director Curry Barker has a bright future ahead. His budget for the movie was a paltry $750,000 – 1 million and at the time of writing has already taken $27.8 million in its opening weekend.

I can’t even think of giving this one less than the highest rating. It’s perfect.

Rob Rating = 10