Soul Crushes and Violent Outbursts - Reviewing 'Obsession'

 

There are spoilers in this blog post, so maybe see the movie before reading, but definitely go see it! 

The best horror movies are those that take us to a place of emotional vulnerability, and then hit us with supernatural terror. Hereditary did it, The Babadook did it, and now Obsession does it... Horror's newest enfant terrible Curry Barker's first big budget production will soon start ravaging movie theaters and justly so. I have had the opportunity to see Obsession twice - at the past Fantasy Filmfest Nights and at the Creepy Crypt Sneak Preview this past weekend - I didn't know what I was going to see as it was a sneak preview, but I still would have gone if I had known that it is Obsession. The movie is a hoot.

Due to the infamous numbness every fan experiences more or less after consuming too much horror, I rarely go to movies with the expectation to be scared anymore. And sometimes it's all the better when a movie succeeds in doing so. Obsession definitely did.

We're following  Bear, a retail worker at a music store who has a crush on Nikki from work, who, in turn, is not interested in him at all. Then there are Sarah and Ian who also work at the same store. You know how sometimes you want someone so bad you go wishing upon a shooting star for them, you throw pennies into fountains, you visit saints and covet from the bottom of your heart that they would come to you? That's how Bear wants Nikki, and when he sees the opportunity to wish on a corny willow branch that you break in half to make a wish, he seizes it. What he doesn't expect is that it works and it works immediately. There's one problem - the person he's with isn't the person he wants to be with.

Nikki's real personality is suppressed or possessed by Bear's wish but her own self shimmers through sporadically. And underneath Wish-Nikki she is in agony. She doesn't want to be with him and she'd rather die, but that limerence, that yearning Bear has for her is so damn strong, he just can't let go of her, even if it's just an illusion of Nikki. He's obsessed. The film then goes on to treat the inherent incompatibility of these two and Bear not wanting to accept that incompatibility, suffering its pain.  

Setting up Bear for emotional vulnerability (and to foreshadow the ending), the film starts with the death of his beloved cat Sandy. Everything intensely builds up from there, closing the circle with Bear meeting Sandy's exact devastating fate - the Chekhov's gun here is a bottle of tranquilizers.

That's the basic outline of the movie and in its core, there's nothing super original that Barker brings to the trope. He keeps it simple, and maybe that's a smart move. But the way he handles the subject, and even more than that, the way he makes horror work, is undeniably more than smart.

Let's start with the underlying main idea, the Monkey's Paw trope which has served as a staple for many tales of mystery and horror ever since its conception by author W.W. Jacobs in the early 20th century. In its original version the owner of an accursed mummified monkey's paw is granted three wishes, but all of them come with a hellish price. It has been done and re-done for more than a century in various forms and shapes, and there's even a Simpsons episode which ultimately inspired Barker to make Obsession.

Please, no more weird shit.

Bear's Monkey's Paw is a willow tree branch called "One Wish Willow", and despite the fact that he knew there has been customer complaints, he misunderstands the nature of them and wishes his wish that will change Nikki to a version of herself who will love him anyway. And boy, how does she love him...

I always try to emphasize the transgressive nature of horror, in which everything, even nice and pretty and beautiful things will become first ridiculous and in the next stage horrifying if they keep crossing a certain boundary, and this is what happens here.

Freddy Mercury must have wanted to warn Nikki and Bear when he sang "Too Much Love Will Kill You" since that's what basically happens. The Nikki that Bear conjures with his wish is what we call in Turkish "dengesiz" - someone who has no balance, someone who is inconsistent in their behavior, unpredictable and taken to extremes, this definitely is an unsettling sort of horror. She loves too much and loves him "more than anyone in the entire world", she loves him uncontrolled-ly, insanely, so much so that he finds himself in a hostage situation so jarring and terrifying it is basically abuse. But it is self-abuse, in the end, he wished for it and could end it any time. Which he ultimately does.

On a side note I'd like to reverse the point of view of the movie, to show the graveness of what it portrays. Yes, Bear is a nice guy, he's sweet and easy to root for. But let's look at it from the woman's point of view. You know this guy you hang out with and even have a loose affair with his (so-called) best friend and he basically kidnaps you, you are imprisoned in your body and something else takes control over it, forcing you to be the committed lover of this person you just don't want to be with, sleep with... I mean, consider her reaction in the final scene, do I need to say more? There is a second, invisible horror lurking underneath Nikki's skin, and that makes the film double uncanny.

Kudos, by the way, to the actress for Nikki, Inde Navarette, for being able to convey that terrifying insanity as well as she does.

So, combining the two points I discuss above, a horror movie that starts from a point of emotion and a horror movie that crosses borders, Barker attains a shocking intensity, but that's not all that makes the horror in this movie great. The jump scares were timed and placed impeccably, the horror was placed impeccably, like the eerie "watching while you sleep" scene, and Nikki's violent outbreaks, and her voice when she had her spells, my gods, I shudder to think!

Since the source of the One Wish Willow was never declared, I totally see this turning into a franchise where all sorts of people all over the place make cursed wishes and find out the hard way, I certainly would like to see Barker become a household name. Let's see if it happens. I wouldn't make a wish on it, though.