American writer-director Curry Barker is not a popular name in filmmaking right now. His first feature-length film, “Milk and Cereal,” was released in 2024 and had very little distribution. But now that Mr. Barker has released his second feature-length film, I hope his name will get more attention.
This second film is “Obsession.” Now, I know this sounds dramatic, but this film is the best one I've seen so far this year.
“Obsession” opens on a twenty something man named Bear, wallowing in his feelings of love for his friend Nicky but he just can't muster the courage to tell her. In a desperate attempt to proclaim his desire and win the love of his life he buys an old-fashioned wish willow and uses it to wish for Nicky's heart.
Bear's wish is granted, Nicky starts doting on him, and they start dating one another. But when Nicky's behavior gets more and more erratic, Bear starts reconsidering the wish he made.
Nicky's erratic behavior goes to disturbing and then to violent, all to prove her unstoppable devotion to her true love.
I felt my shoulders tense so many times while watching this in the theater. Even now days after watching “Obsession” still haunts my memories. It does a masterful job building creepy distress while also forcing viewers to confront the unbalanced exchanges between young men and women.
Michael Johnston is impressive as the frightened boyfriend becoming trapped in a nightmare of his own making. His looks of shock, apprehension, and despair are authentic and manage not to feel one note.
Of course, though the star of this film is actress Inde Navarrette, who plays the girlfriend Nicky with the unhinged energy of a treadmill on fire. She appears ordinary and innocent in some moments, and then dangerously unpredictable in the next. In the words of the techno song by Dead Mouse, featuring Skylar Grey, her "heart has teeth."
It was impossible to look away from her in this film's one hour 48-minute run time. She takes the secret male fantasy of controlling a beautiful woman and twists it into deadly manipulation.
“Obsession” is a contemporary take on the monkey's paw story, a story often ending with the popular phrase, "Be careful what you wish for.” Other films that play with this idea include “Pet Cemetery” from 1989 or in the science fiction genre, "Sphere" from 1998
A more recent example might be the horror film “The Substance” with Demi Moore. “Obsession” is also related to films on manic female fixations, like “Play Misty for Me” from 1971 or “Fatal Attraction” from 1987.
Although “Obsession” has a much darker edge than those films, the Me-Too movement reminded many people how common the victimization of women actually is in the 21st century. “Obsession” is reminding people how varied that victimization can be, and how deep it can run in a world of instant gratification and increasingly unbridled impulses.
“Obsession” is wild and bloody and strange, but it has an underlying current of darkly relatable truths. If you can handle sinister horror that stays with you, please watch this film being shot in just 20 days. It's a great example of small-scale filmmaking done right.
For Flix at 48 I'm Casey T Allen.
