TL;DR: A guy makes a wish that forces the girl he likes to love him, and it spirals into violent, unsettling chaos - worth watching if you like dark horror with strong performances and don’t mind it going hard on shock value over subtle storytelling.
A Wish That Goes Very, Very Wrong
“Be careful what you wish for” - This type of slogan/setup usually promises two things: bad decisions and consequences that arrive with zero mercy, and Obsession leans fully into that idea and then keeps pushing it further, almost like it’s testing how far it can go before you start laughing out of discomfort or just putting your hands over your face for a bit of emotional protection.
The film follows Bear, a soft-spoken, slightly lost guy who works in a music store and spends most of his life orbiting the same small group of friends, where he’s been quietly in love with Nikki for years, which everyone around him seems to know except Nikki herself, and even that isn’t exactly a secret he hides well, it's just that he never does anything about it, which becomes its own personality trait.
One night, after a series of small disappointments that pile up in that very ordinary way life tends to do, he comes across a strange object called a One Wish Willow, which is the kind of thing you’d normally ignore unless you’re in a very specific mood or you’ve decided to start making questionable life choices on purpose, but as you can expect, he doesn’t ignore it, so he makes a wish that Nikki would love him more than anyone else in the world, and that’s the moment the whole film shifts gears without asking permission.
At first, the result looks like a dream scenario for him, as Nikki suddenly becomes intensely focused on him, affectionate in a way that’s almost too fast, too clean, too perfect, but it doesn’t take long before that “perfect” part starts to crack, and what comes through those cracks is where the movie actually lives.
Read some more horror movie reviews:
The Horror Starts Small, Then Gets Worse
Early on, everything seems normal in how everything looks, but something is clearly off, as Nikki isn’t introduced as a monster or anything obvious, because she’s warm, familiar, part of the same social circle, with joking, teasing, and easy conversations that feel like they’ve been going on for years, so it almost tricks you into relaxing for a second.
Then the behavior starts to slip, with small changes that make you question whether you’re reading it right, as she becomes more attached, more intense, and more possessive in ways that stop feeling romantic and start feeling like someone slowly tightening a grip they don’t realize is hurting the other person, before it just escalates.
The turning point is where things stop being uncomfortable in a “this might be awkward” way and shift into “this is absolutely not okay and also I can’t look away” territory, where Nikki’s behaviour becomes more like ownership, and the film doesn’t soften that blow, it just keeps going.
Bear as a Main Character Who Makes Everything Worse Quietly
Bear is not built like a typical horror lead who suddenly becomes brave or self-aware, as he stays frustratingly human in a way that makes the situation worse, so even when things clearly spiral out of control, he doesn’t fully step away from what he started.
There’s a selfish logic running through him the entire time, like he’s trying to hold onto the idea that he can still keep the “good parts” of what he wished for without dealing with the consequences attached, which is uncomfortable to sit with because nothing about his situation feels exaggerated either, it’s just bad judgment layered on top of worse judgment, and the film doesn’t let him off the hook.
At the same time, I can’t say I hated watching him, because there’s something honest about how ordinary his thought process is, as he's just a person wanting something, getting it, and then realizing too late that he didn’t actually think about what it would cost.
Nikki Carries the Movie Harder Than Expected
Nikki is easily the most memorable part of the film for me, where Inde Navarrette is fantastic, and hopefully she gets a lot of accolades for her performance, as she plays Nikki with this constant push and pull between warmth and something unstable underneath it, so one moment she’s funny and part of the group in a completely believable way, while the next she’s doing or saying something that makes you want to sit up a bit straighter.
What worked best though is that the film doesn’t turn her into a one-note threat, which would have been easy to do here, as even in her worst moments, there’s still a sense that something is wrong rather than her just being “evil”, and that difference matters more than it probably should, because it keeps the character from turning into background noise for the horror scenes.
There are also moments where her behavior gets so extreme that I had that awkward reaction where you’re not sure whether to react with shock or just sit in silence and process what just happened, and the film leans into that discomfort without trying to cushion it, and it's better for it.
When Obsession does decide to go hard, it really goes for it, where the violent moments aren’t spaced out evenly as much as they are dropped in like interruptions, and that keeps the tension from ever fully resetting, and while there were a few points where I felt like the movie was relying more on shock than progression, it never really goes too far into that territory thankfully.
The film does also touch on that idea of ownership versus affection, and there are moments where it gets close to saying something sharper about it, but it doesn’t always stay there, as it tends to drift back toward spectacle, which is fine, but it does leave some of the emotional weight underused.
There’s also an interesting angle where Bear doesn’t fully process what he’s done in a meaningful way - he reacts, he panics, he suffers, but I don’t think he ever truly reaches a point of understanding in a way that feels complete - and that choice might frustrate some people, but it also makes him more believable than if he suddenly turned into a fully reflective character mid-chaos.
Final Thoughts
After Milk & Serial, Curry Barker has stepped up and provided us one of 2026' best horror movies so far, and I have no doubt it will still be one of the best horror films of 2026 come the end of the year - Obsession is a film that isn’t subtle, and it doesn’t really try to be, as it builds a strong idea, pushes it into uncomfortable places, and keeps escalating until things become hard to ignore.
I will certainly look forward to what Curry Barker does next, with his next film called Anything But Ghosts releasing soon, and where he is also due to direct the next Texas Chainsaw Massacre film, so clearly he is a director that is going nowhere but up, and considering he started on YouTube doing shorts, it's certainly a whirlwind rise that won't be slowing down anytime soon.