Hello, horror friends, thank you for stopping by. Please know your time is valuable to me, and I am grateful you clicked the link and are now here reading this. Thank you again.
Let’s get to the point. Yes, Obsession (2025) was a great movie, but it was also painful to watch. Not because it was boring or done poorly, as that would disqualify it from being enthusiastically championed as great, but because it did a magnificent job at portraying some of the worst traits in men and women: that of a cowardly man and an emotionally unstable woman. Bravo, Mr. Barker, bravo!
What a horrible combination. The worst of the worst together, and not by chance, but by choice, more specifically, by Bear, the main character.
When I tell you that minutes into the movie I wanted to tap out because of how insufferable Bear was, you better believe me. And again, the brilliance of Curry Barker, writer and director, oozed through this carefully crafted character.
Bear lacked confidence (and style, and a career, but let’s focus on the confidence for sake of time), to the point that he literally rehearsed out loud—with the help of his friend, and a diner employee—what he wanted to say to the woman holding his romantic obsession, Nikki. Tell me, who in their right mind would do this? Even in adolescence when it was acceptable to have unsophisticated social skills, you would rehearse in your mind and in private all the embarrassing things you wanted to say to your crush. Even the word crush is properly juvenile. A man in his twenties should not have to deal with those feelings. A man with a fully developed frontal lobe should have the wherewithal to realize something was off with him for reacting so powerfully to the nonreciprocal romantic idea with a female friend. He would be repulsed by it and repudiate it and move on with his life, or he would man up and tell to the female friend, and only to the female friend, how he felt about her and when he got rejected, he would accept it and move on with his life.
But yet again, there would be no movie if he had done the right thing. So onwards with the wrong we go.
**SPOILERS AHEAD**
Bear used a supernatural novelty toy to wish Nikki loved him more than anyone in the world. So, she did. Bear ignored the glaring warning signs that something was terribly wrong with Nikki—a psychotic breakdown, illicit drugs, a brain tumor, or, just for funsies, a silly love spell gone wrong—and instead of getting her help, he entertained the absurd belief that she was being honest with her sudden insatiable affection and attention for him. He chose to disregard the facts known by everyone in her life: that of Nikki seeing him only as a friend, and her desire to focus her energy solely in her writing. Those things meant nothing to him. Bear was delusional and selfish.
All we knew about Nikki before unwillingly turning into an unbearable screeching woman due to the obsessive love demon possessing her was that she, like Bear, worked in retail at a music store and had a laid-back lifestyle, but unlike Bear, she dated casually and was now ready to take her writing seriously enough for her to give her two weeks’ notice, explore what life had to offer for her out there, experience love, and, more importantly, feel loved. She wanted love to guide her into the new chapter of her life.
When Nikki turned evil, she was scary in a real, visceral way. I hate to say this but, well, she turned into a b-word. Yes, she walked and moved funny, like a glitching ghost, and hid in the shadows, and became catatonic, and peed and pooped and threw up all over herself, but the truly eerie stuff happened when she yelled, and screamed, and cried, and laughed, and stared, and, and, and… A guy’s worst nightmare was embodied in her. Nikki became the girlfriend who gaslights you, who acts crazy and calls you crazy, who does damage and reminds you it’s all your fault, who hurts and kills and blames you for it. But you see, she was too pretty for you, and gave you sex, and worshiped you—you could never, ever let her go!
To end the spell, Bear had to die. So, he did. When Bear could not take it anymore, he overdose on pills (did I mention he was on a large number of prescription drugs? I found that detail peculiar. The movie showcased manipulation and mental illness under the intoxicating veil of the horror genre, but I believed that displaying a massive amount of prescription bottles, and in more than one scene, was too on the nose, alas, we’re here), well, he tried to, as for a moment he thought better of it and shoved his fingers down his throat to make himself throw up, well, he tried to again, as all of the sudden his face changed and walked out of his hiding place and went straight to Nikki.
Nikki had, unbeknownst to him, just like he had done to her, used the supernatural novelty toy to wish Bear loved her back.
For a brief moment, for mere seconds, really, both Bear and Nikki looked into each other’s eyes, with deep fake love, and were perfectly matched for one another. This small moment, this nothing moment, this one made it all worth it.
As soon as Bear died (remember, he did try to induce vomiting but got distracted by the love spell so the pills in fact killed him), Nikki was freed. Just a second later and she would have pulled the trigger. Imagine the terrifying feeling of waking up from the worst blackout of your life with a gun down your throat, with a pounding headache, with blood everywhere, with fake tattoos on your chest and arms, and at someone’s house with your dear friend dead at your feet. Once again, bravo, Mr. Barker, bravo!
Obsession was a great example of the art and the love of filmmaking. Barker has been consistent with producing five-star horror short films on YouTube with Milk & Serial, and, of course, The Chair, being fan favorites, and now it does not come as a surprise that his dedication and unique ideas are being recognized by Hollywood. Here’s to high-value independent writers and directors stewarding a decaying industry into the new era of horror entertainment – hear, hear!
In Love and Fear,
—Marath
© 2016-2026
