Director Curry Barker’s latest horror hits terrifyingly close to the real world with a story about control and abuse. Here’s our Obsession review. “Who’s the victim here?” That’s one of the questions I wrote down about half way through YouTuber turned feature filmmaker Curry Barker’s Obsession. What started out as a pretty traditional Monkey’s Paw ... Obsession review | Romance turns sour in 2026’s most disturbing horror yet
Director Curry Barker’s latest horror hits terrifyingly close to the real world with a story about control and abuse. Here’s our Obsession review.
“Who’s the victim here?”
That’s one of the questions I wrote down about half way through YouTuber turned feature filmmaker Curry Barker’s Obsession. What started out as a pretty traditional Monkey’s Paw horror had by that point turned into something a lot more interesting.
The opening shot of Obsession introduces us to Bear (Michael Johnston, excellent), professing his love to the girl of his dreams. Or, at least, practicing it on a waiter at a diner. Bear is hopelessly in love with his friend Nikki (Inde Navarrette, even more excellent but more on that later) and he’s dying for her to know and respond to his feelings.
When that isn’t looking likely, Bear innocently makes a wish while breaking a One-Wish-Willow, a cheap little trinket he picked up at a shop. And since this is a horror film, things get a little weird and very bloody.
From the very start, we’re on Bear’s side. Here’s a harmless young man who just wants to love and to be loved in return, much like Ewan McGregor in Moulin Rouge!. He doesn’t mean to cause harm to Nikki when wishing she would love him more than anything in the world.
But that’s exactly what he’s done. After a cute montage together, Nikki begins to grow increasingly over-attached and desperate, to the point that even Bear is starting to wonder if he wants this. It might be too late by then.
It would have been easy to keep Nikki as the slightly supernatural villain, out to chase Bear who’s done nothing wrong. After all, how could he have known his wish would come true and have such severe consequences? Give the guy a break!
And this is where the real brilliance of Obsession lies. Bear is the true, despicable villain here, controlling and manipulating Nikki, abusing her, and preventing her from having any kind of autonomy. In a particularly disturbing scene, Nikki wakes up from her state for a moment and begs Bear to kill her. Even death is better than living under someone’s control so completely and having no independence.
Bear may not have meant to do anything bad, but intention doesn’t matter. Barker cleverly subverts the usual monkey’s paw trope by not making the object itself cursed or evil. This one even has a help line. A thoroughly useless one, but a help line nonetheless. Bear is the evil one here, his wish the cause of so much chaos and havoc. It all feels like a frighteningly close connection to the real world, and Obsession will likely make women feel particularly anxious and uncomfortable. It sure did this writer.
Johnston is great at balancing Bear’s innocence with his selfish need to be loved and appreciated by Nikki, but Navarrette is the film’s carrying force. Her performance is completely gutsy. The pair forge an uncomfortable connection and Barker manages to inject a few scenes that border on funny, but giggling at them feels thoroughly wrong. And that’s exactly what you want from a film like this. You want that almost physical feeling of needing to run out of the cinema, but also being unable to take your eyes off the screen.
Barker made a strong impression with his low-budget found footage horror film Milk & Serial. Made with just $800, the film showed great potential, and with a relatively higher – if still quite small – budget, Barker’s skills as a filmmaker are truly unleashed. He will next move onto rebooting the Texas Chainsaw Massacre franchise and Obsession promises that he won’t just serve us Leatherface slaughtering people, but something a little more ambitious.
Obsession won’t work for everyone and is far from perfect. We don’t get to know Nikki much before she’s taken over by the forced love for Bear, and Bear himself can come across as a bit of a joke, but the positives far outweigh the negatives. There was an even gorier version of Obsession at one point, but the one presented to us has plenty of punch. Barker balances awkward laughs with some truly unsettling imagery and themes, making this one of the most disturbing films of the year.
Obsession is in UK cinemas 15th May
