Photo Courtesy of Lockworks Cinema
If Amy Madigan can win for Weapons, then Inde Navarrette can win for this. She is outstanding.
- Director – Curry Barker
- Runtime – 109 minutes
- Certificate – 18
- Country – United States
I love when a small horror film gets unanimous attention and hype and then it actually deserves it, because everything that was hyped up is fantastic.
For a simple concept of a guy, Bear (Michael Johnston), making a wish for his crush to like him back and then dealing with the consequences it has so much depth and nuances to it with regard to dating and the male rom-com tropes.
What I liked the most is just how intense it was. It’s not really scary but more dreadful. And it makes that clear from the first 15 minutes. As soon as Bear makes that wish it gets uncomfortable very quickly. This dread stays with you for the rest of the runtime.
Barker makes sure of this with how he frames the camera. Presented in an aspect ratio of 1.50:1 the film is incredibly cramped and claustrophobic. You feel every single bit of tension because of this. Whether the characters are centrally placed or if the camera moves slightly to create a ton of negative space.
Everything is done with absolute precision and is a masterclass in direction from Barker. He also knows exactly how to light a scene. His use of silhouettes and shadows was outrageously good (more later). I seriously think this should be getting the same treatment as Sinners at next year’s Oscars.
What Barker also does masterfully in his directing is directing his stars. Everyone and their mother is talking about Inde Narvarrette’s performances as Nikki and it is for very good reason. She delivers an all time horror performance that is up there with Isabelle Adjani in Possession and Toni Collette in Hereditary. The physicality that goes into this is tremendous. She moves her body and face in ways I didn’t know one could.
It cannot be understated how creepy and crazed she is and that partly comes from Barker’s silhouettes and shadows. A lot of her scenes in Bear’s house her face is completely covered with a shadow besides the smallest glimmer of light in her eyes and her mouth. I don’t think words can describe how haunting that is to see on the big screen. There are scenes where she is surrounded by that negative space and all you can see is her silhouette. So when she starts moving incredibly fast back and forth it strikes genuine fear.
There are countless moments where she displays a powerhouse performance but if I did that, we’d be here all day long.
One thing she and Barker do exceptionally well is comedy. The film isn’t a dark a comedy but it surprisingly has some few funny moments and a lot of it comes from Nikki. Going from completely crazed to ‘normal’ in a split second shift is weirdly humorous. If Inde was unable to do that shift the film would fall flat. However, the funniest character to me was Cooper Tomlinson’s Ian. He’s not there much but when he is, he’s hilarious.
But the humour also comes from the world around Bear. When he goes back to the store where he bought the toy that grants a wish to complain to the workers, he starts rambling about how it’s ruining his life and in the background you hear the worker say “You could kill yourself, just spitballing.” That sense of grounded realism in a situation make for the humour to be bleak but also have an entire screening laugh.
To counter Nikki you have Bear. I don’t see many talking about Johnston’s performance but they should because he also delivers an impressive performance. The fear he conveys with just his eyes is so captivating. You’d think that it is genuinely happening to Michael Johnston.
What he also does great is making you sympathise with him. Before going into that, I do not actually sympathise with Bear and he is undoubtedly the villain the second he makes the wish but rather I sympathise with Johnston’s performance. He plays him so pathetically that he almost makes you think ‘poor guy’ and that is how good he is, because then you remember what he does and then that sympathetic thought immediately goes away.
The real scare factor comes from the whole situation and how disturbing it is rather than isolated ‘scary’ moments. There are still jump scares but when you sit and think, it really hits. It’s Navarrette and Johnston that really sells this. A few times the wish lets up and the real Nikki is able to speak momentarily pleading that it isn’t her and that Bear should kill her, to which he replies “Is it really that bad to be with me?”.
The real Nikki is buried deep down and there the whole time and bear knows that. At the start of the wish before everything goes horribly wrong there’s a sex scene between Johnston and Navarrette where she is moaning but her body is almost completely motionless. Knowing that Bear knows it isn’t the ‘real’ Nikki he is having sex with is one of the most disturbing thoughts to be walking out of the cinema with.
The film could have very easily not made it seem that Nikki isn’t a victim and that she also wants this but Barker intentionally does this to ensure the viewer knows this. It speaks on so many levels but more on entitlement in relationships and ‘the nice guy’ trope.
If Barker wasn’t the smallest bit careful the film would have a completely different meaning to it.
Obsession is an excellent ‘relationship’ horror thanks to its generational performance by Navarrette and its phenomenal direction by Barker which all create a tense and haunting atmosphere.
Obsession is now playing at the Lockworks.