Well, it took showing up on VOD for me to finally check out Curry Barker’s massive horror hit, Obsession, but better late than never, right?
The relatively indie film, made for roughly $750,000 has been all the rage at the box office, where it’s made over $250 million so far, with its first few weekend totals actually raising week to week, virtually unheard of in Hollywood. With the hype so strong, I wondered how I’d feel when I actually got the chance to check out Obsession for myself.
Yeah, the hype is real.
If you haven’t seen the film yet, the concept is pretty simple: Bear (Michael Johnston) makes a wish using a One Wish Willow he bought at an occult shop. The wish is simple – that his friend Nikki (Inde Navarrette) will love him more than anyone else in the world. The wish comes true, and that’s when things get bad.
It’s a simple concept, but in the hands of director/writer/editor Barker and his two lead actors, Obsession is an entertaining, occasionally funny, and often disturbing experience. Johnston’s Bear is a sad sack of a character, hardly empathetic and actually pretty slimy, and at no point did I find myself rooting for him. Navarrette is incredible in her role as Nikki; she veers between gorgeous and frightening and meets all the demands of the perhaps surprisingly nuanced character, often within seconds. It’s an instant horror-classic performance, a star-making role that will likely have audiences eagerly anticipating the actor’s next film. The main duo is backed up by excellent performances from Cooper Tomlinson and Megan Lawless.
Along with the performances, what I was really impressed with was the mythology of the One Wish Willow that Barker created in brief moments. The scenes of Bear’s customer service phone call along with his late in the film interaction with one of the occult store employees (Darin Toonder) lets the audience know that the mess he’s created may not be unusual, and that the ways out are pretty fatal.
Much is being made of how Curry Barker comes from the world of YouTube content creation, along with Backrooms director Kane Parsons, are having box office success on low budget films. I’m aiming to Backrooms this weekend with its addtional 15 minutes of footage, and I’m excited for that as well, seeing as how I know absolutely nothing about it; I’ve managed to avoid trailers and summaries and scenes. Horror, like any genre, always needs fresh, innovative voices and stories, and that’s what Obsession has delivered. I’m eager to see what Barker does next.
