“Obsession” makes tragic horror out of stolen love

Starring Michael Johnston, Inde Navarrette, Megan Lawless, Cooper Tomlinson and Andy Richter. Written and directed by Curry Barker. Now on VOD (and still in theatres). 108 minutes. 14A

⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2 (out of 4)

Peter Howell

Movie Critic

“I’m not feeling love and I want to feel love,” music-store clerk Nikki (Inde Navarrette) tells her sad-sack co-worker Bear (Michael Johnston), who desperately wants Nikki’s adoration. She means it existentially, not romantically, a distinction her friend-zoned pal is too self-centred to grasp.

This misunderstanding fuels the film’s terror. A transformation is coming, via a familiar horror movie trope: a magic artifact that fulfills desire. It’s called the One Wish Willow, a cheap novelty the inept romeo Bear buys on impulse at a gift shop. With a snap of the tchotchke and a single wish, he overrides Nikki’s autonomy and forces her to fall in love with him, instantly and intensely.

The shift is immediate and deeply wrong. Nikki is suddenly in Bear’s bed, being the “Freaky Nikki” of his fantasies with a volatility that looks more like possession than passion. Their friends and co-workers, Sarah (Megan Lawless) and Ian (Cooper Tomlinson), watch in confusion as Nikki’s personality fractures into something unrecognizable: a person even more needy than Bear.

Dallying with the supernatural always has unintended and terrifying consequences. “Obsession” is reminiscent of such recent evil MacGuffin movies as “The Monkey” and “Talk to Me,” where reckless choices unleash chaos. Here, however, the horror stems not from bad decisions alone but from the erasure of consent and personal identity, a far more unsettling proposition.

This sophomore feature by YouTube-honed writer-director Curry Barker (“Milk & Serial”) invokes a deep sense of tragedy, operating less as a shock machine — although there are some real jolts — than as a slow-burn moral nightmare. Nikki, played with stunning volatility by Navarrette, isn’t given a choice about falling in love, and the performance makes that violation visible in every forced smile and fearful mood swing.

The real Nikki, perceptive and fully in command of herself, flickers beneath the imposed persona, making her public outbursts and acts of cruelty feel like symptoms of something parasitic rather than personal.

Barker’s film is a tale of entitlement disguised as romance, summoning both fear and sympathy. The true monster isn’t the malevolent magic trick but the desire to be loved at any cost, even if it means hijacking another person’s will.