Comedy and horror thrive on surprise, but Obsession (2025) — a buzzy comedy-horror that unsettlingly straddles those genres — doesn’t need to be surprising. Indeed, the expectations of its tropey premise are what makes it so cringingly effective.
Bear (Michael Johnston) is an aimless twentysomething who works at a music store with his friends Nikki (Inde Navarrette), Ian (Cooper Tomlinson), and Sarah (Megan Lawless). The quartet has developed into a casual friend group, but Bear has been harboring a crush on Nikki — and he’s working up the nerve to tell her about it. To support his efforts, Bear has the bright idea to buy her a necklace, but ultimately balks, instead spontaneously buying a “One Wish Willow” from a New Age novelty shop. When the opportunity finally arrives to ask her out, he blows it big time, and reacts by cavalierly invoking the gag gift to make Nikki fall in love with him. Which, of course, she does…but not at all in the way he was hoping.
In its broader strokes, Obsession executes a simple Twilight Zone parable that tastes exactly like the menu description: a “be careful what you wish for” morality play establishing the protagonist’s desires, then shattering them with horrific consequences. There is no real structural surprise, but what makes it work is that the results are so expected — especially given the timely sociopolitical spin writer/director Curry Barker puts on it. Bear isn’t precisely an incel, but as a “nice guy” who cluelessly scrambles his love interest’s identity to get what he “wants,” he’s pretty much one step removed — deserving, to a degree, of his comeuppance. Of course, Bear’s lesson is learned at everyone else’s expense, causing profound collateral damage. The story’s messy, tragic results give Obsession a serious subtext that its comedic shock tactics don’t entirely smother, giving the ride a thought-provoking aftertaste.
Meanwhile, the acting seals the deal. Navarrette kills it with a multifaceted, deeply committed performance, balancing clichéd possessiveness tropes with go-for-it histrionics and deranged facial expressions, whipping the tone back and forth across the genre border. Johnston is also outstanding as Bear, whose initial confused opportunism gives way to recognition of the utter situational wrongness. What Bear is doing is creepy as fuck, but Johnston gives him a moral compass that, as it spectacularly malfunctions, adds to both the horror and the humor. On the one hand, Obsession is a simple and effective idea, but it’s given resonance by its nuanced handling of tone and subject matter. This is a film that knows what it’s about, and serves itself up superbly.
