Men are terrifying.

You need not even gaze on the men in high American political positions to recognize that reality. Just try being a woman taking an Uber ride home on a Saturday night. Or standing outside a bar. Or just existing in any public space. Constant vigilance is a must as men feel entitled to stare, ask for “dates,” grope, or otherwise dehumanize you at the drop of a hat. As bad as it is already, imagine if guys had some magical wish-granting trinket to realize their fantasies. Terrifying. That’s Obession‘s starting point.

Baron “Bear” Bailey (Michael Johnston) has a crush on his longtime friend and co-worker Nikki Freeman (Inde Navarrette). His friend Ian (Cooper Tomlinson) urges Bear to abandon romantic pursuit. Insists Nikki doesn’t share his affection. But Bear won’t give up. After all, his desires matter most. And yet, eventually, even he has to admit she’s not interested in him like that, Bear turns to a One-Wish Willow for aid. Sitting alone in his car, Bear follows the scant instructions. He proclaims, “I wish Nikki loved me more than anyone in the world”, and cracks the trinket in half. Lo and behold, it works.

Suddenly, her passions and desires are gone. She’s only interested in Bear. Really interested. Like possessively interested. As the days pass, Nikki’s romantic conviction grows increasingly unhinged. Rarely has someone learned “be careful what you wish for” so gruesomely.

In YouTube horror short films like Milk & Serial, writer/director Curry Barker demonstrated impressive atmospheric control and framing. Still, starting a career making shorts best watched on a phone suggests a possible failure to fully exploit a big-screen canvas in his jump to theatrical feature filmmaking. Thankfully, those concerns quickly proved unfounded. Barker and cinematographer Taylor Clemons constantly demonstrate a keen sense of staging throughout Obsession. The transition to widescreen only amplified the director’s visual strengths rather than revealing weaknesses.

The feature’s imagery especially excels in using the 1.50:1 aspect ratio’s cramped spacing to establish an atmosphere of terrifying entrapment and memorable blocking. Clever visual beats abound, where the remarkable precision of what audiences don’t see keeps viewers on the edge of their seats. What’s going on just out of frame? What’s that lurking in the back of the frame? Obsession is rife with memorable visuals contributing mightily to its suffocatingly suspenseful ambiance. It left me digging my nails into my seat and clutching my breath, dreading what messed-up anarchy waited around the corner. Like 2024’s Longlegs, Obsession is a modern horror movie where everything is creepily rotten from the ground up, suggesting a realm where there is no escape, even in your own home.

From the opening scene where Bear coerces a waitress to stand in for Nikki so he can rehearse his “romantic” confessional, his chilling viewpoint of women is immediately apparent. Johnston presents him as unnerving from the start, not an average Joe on the precipice of being capsized by fantastical terrors.

Much of the film’s unhinged pleasures rest in glorious work from Navarrette. She makes Possession’s Isabelle Adjani and Jennifer’s Body’s Megan Fox proud with a riveting and bravura performance. The moment Bear makes that fateful wish, she goes whole-hog, constantly drumming up unexpected facial expressions or super outsized body language that kept me on my toes. There’s no sense of calculation in Nikki’s display of aggressive “affection”. Everything feels so organic and surprising.

That unpredictability makes even Navarrette’s most restrained scenes— lingering in the dark or standing too long in one place—mesmerizing. Once Navarrette establishes Nikki’s unpredictability, you never know what the next moment will bring. Is she just going to say, “hi, honey!”? Or is she about to deliver a warped Hansel & Gretel-themed monologue? Great horror cinema relies on that tension, and she delivers it in abundance. All hail Inde Navarrette!

Combining her tour-de-force performance with impressive visuals would be enough for a great time at the cinema. However, there’s much more excellence, including a mastery of tone that deftly oscillates between dark humor and tangible, grim emotional stakes. Weaving between each ingredient heightens Obsession’s chaotic ambiance. It’s commendable that Barker isn’t afraid of wringing laughs out of more pronounced gags. Other horror directors might see heightened visual jokes like a door covered in layers of duct tape as “too silly”. Barker, though, embraces such beats with aplomb.

Whether it’s these punchlines or various visual intricacies, Barker’s Obsession is precisely crafted in its twisted joys. What a potent launchpad for both a richly entertaining horror experience and Inde Navarrette’s leading lady career.

Obsession is now playing in theatres everywhere.

Obsession Trailer: