★★★½ (3½ out of 4)
Have I got a movie for you—a next gen “Fatal Attraction” called “Obsession” that makes a star out of Inde Navarrette as a dream girl conjured from hell and turns newbie filmmaker Curry Barker into the freshest and most perversely funny voice in erotic thrillers since director Brian De Palma taught us about psychos who dress to kill. Barker’s influences are also 21st century; think Zach Cregger’s Weapons” with Aunt Gladys putting a rictus grin on a tortured psyche. But DePalma knew about how the fear of sex was just as strong, maybe stronger, than carnal attraction. Barker knows it too and wants to kick it around.
Let’s back up here for a few plot details. Barker focuses first on a standout Michael Johnston as Baron, aka Bear, a baby cub incel with a nowhere job at a music store where he feeds his fantasies (There’ll be a lot of those.) about co-worker, Nikki (Navarrette). Barker appears to share Bear’s impure thoughts about Nikki since he lavishes closeups on her hotness and sweet, sexy personality without hiding hints of her nascent eccentricity.
Have I got a movie for you—it’s a next gen ‘Fatal Attraction.’
What a shame that poor Bear is too shy to speak up. Desperate that childhood friend Nikki might sweep out of his life for a new job, Bear buys a $6.99 One-Wish-Willow stick from a novelty stop. The instructions are simple. Make a wish—in this case that Nikki will love him more than anyone else in the world— snap the stick and wait for results.
It doesn’t take long. Suddenly Nikki is ever so pliable and winning, except for a possessive streak that makes it look like Glenn Close didn’t hit the revenge button hard enough with Michael Douglas in “Fatal Attraction.” Boiling a bunny is amateur night for Nikki.
Nikki’s buddies at the music store—Cooper Tomlinson as Ian and Megan Lawless as Sara—keep asking Bear what’s going on. What’s with that maniacal laugh Nikki doesn’t know how to stop? I need to stop with the spoilers, except to say Navarrette just eats this movie up. Her acting has drawn comparison to Mia Goth in the uber-scary “Pearl,” but what Navarrette is doing in “Obsession” transcends genre to become the kind of all-time performance that gets talked about for years.
Don’t start slinging accusations of misogyny at “Obsession” like those rightfully aimed at “Fatal Attraction” for presenting an independent, single career woman as inherently unstable, dangerous, and a destroyer of the patriarchy. Instead, watch “Obsession” again and see Nikki as Barker first presents her, before the toxicity in Bear’s head reinvents her as a monster fully deserving payback for the unforgivable sin of rejecting him. Point of view makes “Obsession” another movie entirely, one deserving of more than a surface read.
All praise then to Barker who refuses to make a standard horror film or a standard anything. If “Obsession” was only a nastily effective spin on revenge thrillers it still would be worth a look, but not a second or third one. “Obsession” keeps coming at you, prodding you to see that Nikki’s behavior might really be a manifestation of Bear’s anxiety about the terrors sex can unleash. My theory is it’s not a One-Wish demon possessing Nikki. It’s Bear.
You’ll probably have your own ideas. It takes a filmmaker of stunning virtuosity to juggle all those theories, enough to keep you up nights after you leave the theater. And that is all the work of Barker, who plumbs the violence of the mind like nobody’s business. And his cinema breakthrough in “Obsession” makes you think, “Who the hell is this guy?”
I’ll tell you. He’s a comedian. Literally. Barker, 26, started out with “Obsession” actor Cooper Tomlinson as part of the sketch comedy duo "That’s a Bad Idea.” He’s also sitcom acted in “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia,” and in short films on his YouTube channel, where his 2024 found-footage horror experiment, “Milk & Serial,” became a viral sensation.
What’s with these comics turning to horror to express their dread without losing their twisted wit? Think Jordan Peele (“Get Out”) and Zach Cregger (“Barbarian”). Peele sees comedy and horror as “cojoined twins,” the link found in the precision of a setup that can result in a hoot or howl or sometimes both. Barker achieves both by using relatable humor as a device to draw us in before pulling out the rug and leaving us with something we can’t laugh off. “Obsession” is his calling card. To see it soonest would not be a bad idea.