Director Curry Barker’s ultra-low-budget horror film is nothing short of a modern masterpiece, balancing tones masterfully to generate an unrelenting sense of anxiety, in a tale that uses supernatural horror trappings to explore toxic relationships and behaviours.

Premise: When lovelorn Bear (Michael Johnston) can’t muster the courage to tell his co-worker Nikki (Inde Navarrette) how he feels about her, in a whim he uses a ‘One Wish Willow’ toy to wish for her to fall in love with him. But soon his actions starts to have unforeseen consequences.

Review:

I’m going to call Obsession Curry Barker’s first film, because (a) it’s the former YouTuber’s first theatrically released movie, and (b) his earlier ‘film’, Milk & Serial, was only 62 minutes long (which is not, in my books, a ‘movie’). But semantics aside, it really doesn’t matter what you call it, because Obsession is one of those films that comes out of nowhere and signals the arrival of a new creative force on the block, like Get Out for Jordan Peele or Reservoir Dogs for Quentin Tarantino.

On paper, Obsession sounds like a story we’ve heard before, a variation on the ‘monkey’s paw’ tale of wishes that are twisted to become curses or which extract a heavy price. But one of the interesting things about Obsession and its ‘One Wish Willow’ toy (which was invented for this film, but which already feels like an indelible pop culture reference) is that the toy is arguably not inherently evil, and the wishes are not inherently cursed, as it appears possible (at least theoretically) to make a ‘good’ wish and not suffer horrible consequences. The problems in this film are all the result of a poorly thought out wish, made in a whim without any real belief that it would actually work (which, in fairness, is a pretty reasonable attitude for the character to have taken).

“…makes you feel queasy with anxiety – but in a good way…”

Nevertheless, it’s not long before the unplanned consequences of the wish start to take effect, but one of the things that’s so great about Obsession is that, even though you know the wish won’t work out as planned, the ways in which it doesn’t work out as planned still come as a surprise. And for that reason, I’m not going to say much more about the plot of the movie.

What I will say, is that writer/director Curry Barker has done a fantastic job behind the camera on this movie. Tonally, he’s able to move from a darkly comedic moment, to an emotionally grounded moment, to a starkly unsettling moment seamlessly and fluidly, so that it never feels jarring, but equally, you’re always tense and on the edge of your seat knowing that something unexpected could happen at any moment. And then even when you’re expecting it, it still somehow manages to come as a surprise – not necessarily in a cheap, jump-scare kind of a way, but more in a disquietingly grounded way based around emotionally erratic behaviour. The end result is a film that makes you feel queasy with anxiety for most of its runtime – but in a good way!

“…Inde Navarrette is truly a revelation in this movie…”

Curry Barker also displays great visual flair for such a (relatively) inexperienced director. Not only does his film never feel ‘cheap’ (despite having only cost $750k to make, which means it’s become one of the most profitable films of all time, having grossed over $330m at the time of writing), but he’s also great at managing the framing and the lighting to great effect, whether that’s tantalisingly withholding information from the audience about what’s happening off screen, or framing a shot to unsettle audiences with what’s happening in the background, or lighting a shot in such a way as to make a potentially mundane, everyday situation feel totally terrifying. You may never be able to look as a vase of flowers the same way again…

Alongside Curry Barker, the cast deserve a tonne of credit for bringing the script to life, especially the two leads, Michael Johnston and Inde Navarrette, as Bear and Nikki. Michael Johnston has the less flashy of the two roles, but he does a great job of balancing his performance to maintain the audience’s sympathies despite his character making some dubious decisions. Meanwhile, Inde Navarrette is truly a revelation in this movie, giving a performance that is so varied, nuanced, unsettling and sympathetic that it’s hard to imagine the movie working half as well as it does without her career-making performance. She’s able to be charming and cutesy when she needs to be, and then truly terrifying at other times, and her ability to emotionally turn on a dime (as well as to contort her face into almost inhuman expressions) will send a shiver down your spine.

“…an emotionally complicated tale full of moral ambiguity…”

As I said, I don’t want to say too much about the plot, but I will say that it’s not nearly as straightforward as I was expecting, as it weaves an emotionally complicated tale full of moral ambiguity that entangles Bear, Nikki and their two friends and co-workers, Ian (Cooper Tomlinson) and Sarah (Megan Lawless). If you’re anything like me, there’ll be a lot of spoilerific stuff that you’ll want to unpack and discuss after seeing this film. It is, of course, a supernatural horror (and one that earns its 18-rating in a couple of places) and not a ‘grounded’ relationship drama … and yet, the themes it explores – including coercive control, emotionally abusive relationships, co-dependency, narcissism, objectification, and a lack of empathy – are all sadly realistic relationship ‘red flags’ … it’s just that in Obsession, those behaviours are dialled up to 11.

Although the violence in Obsession is sporadic, when it hits it really hits (one scene had to be trimmed in order to avoid an NC-17 rating in the US!), so this isn’t one of the faint of heart. Equally, some of the subject matter can be quite grim, especially for anyone who’s been effected by abusive relationships, so that’s something to bear in mind too. But for everyone else, this is an absolute must-see – a masterclass in modern ‘elevated’ horror from an up-and-coming director with a bright future ahead of them.