Bunny-boiler females are nothing new. But if there is a pantheon, Inde Navarrette must surely be in it on the strength of her performance in Obsession, sitting alongside Glenn Close (for Fatal Attraction), Kathy Bates (Misery) and, perhaps closest of all in spirit, Isabelle Adjani, for her unhinged performance in Possession.
Navarrette plays Nikki, a hot girl Nikki certain she has decidedly and forever consigned old chum Bear (Michael Johnston) to the friend zone, that’s if she really thinks about him at all. What she doesn’t know is that Bear has somehow come across a hocus-pocus piece of gimcrackery that will grant him one wish – a One Wish Willow. “I wish Nikki would love me more than anyone else in the fucking world,” Bear sighs early on, having yet again in a crunch moment failed to tell Nikki how he feels about her.
Nikki’s feelings for Bear instantly switch out of the platonic and into the romantic, before becoming more focused and intense. Writer/director Curry Barker ratchets up the anxiety in an ever-intensifying externalisation of the moral: be careful what you wish for.
Nice writing and playing here. You might expect Bear to jump all over a girl who suddenly wanted to jump all over him, especially since he’s been harbouring those sort of feelings for her since who knows how long. Instead he’s spooked. Though Nikki would clearly now like to sleep with Bear, he’s not sure he should – it would be like taking advantage of her while drunk.
This is all before Bear realises it’s the One Wish Willow that’s done all this. In another piece of nice writing and playing, Bear goes from being the tongue-tied loser to the man at ease with himself, before he switches again into anxiety once he works out why Nikki is all over him. He starts to wonder where it all will end.
For a good 40 minutes, this movie is an exercise in wonky romantic dynamics – she loves him and he’s eventually grateful for it. Where’s the ugly stuff, you might think, having heard this is one of the best horror movies of recent years. And then it suddenly turns, as Nikki’s adoration of Bear boils over into jealousy, possessiveness and… obsession. Bear wakes up at night to find Nikki is on the other side of the room in the dark, just watching him. She cuts his hair while he sleeps. She tapes up the door so so he can’t get out. The cat dies and… well, watch it for yourself.
Navarrette’s performance is a thing of wonder. Not just her insane fixed grin and ability to pivot emotionally but in her physicality, her strange jerky movements betraying a pathological, possibly conflicted mindset with a single focus. She’s obviously watched Adjani going hell for batshit leather in Żuławski’s Possession, surely the peak of this sort of thing.
The blurbs tell us that this was shot dark because there wasn’t enough money for lights, which is clearly nonsense. Director Curry Barker has a clear idea what he’s doing, not so much shining a light on the workings of the diseased mind but leaving things murky. Because stuff you can’t see is more frightening than stuff you can.
Again the blurbs tell us that the film was based on a 1991 episode of The Simpsons, Treehouse of Horror II, itself based on the old short story The Monkey’s Paw – wishes come backloaded with grief is what that boils down to.
Barker and Cooper Tomlinson were a comedy double act before making Milk & Serial, a found-footage horror produced for $800 which got them noticed. They are again director and producer here and have been noticed a bit more this time around, having graduated from Tik Tok/YouTube/Instagram to Hollywood and a distribution deal with Focus Features, who have a good track record on quality.
It’s a simple film in many respects, but it works so well because Barker – as writer and director – works his premise through to its logical conclusion and because the insane hottie is one of those archetypal fantasy figures of the male imagination. And because Barker’s not afraid to go gruesome to make his point.
Obsession – Watch it/buy it at Amazon
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© Steve Morrissey 2026
