Horror Catch-Up Watch: Obsession (2025)

Watched:  09/28/2026

Format:  Peacock

Viewing:  First

Director:  Curry Barker

I only knew three things before going into Obsession (2025):

• It made an insane amount of money (~$520 million) on a modest indie-horror budget
• I knew Inde Navarrette from the excellent Superman & Lois where she played the daughter of Lana Lang

I guess I also knew that Navarrette's character, Nikki, was obsessed with some guy and magic was involved.  And the audience was primarily young people and a few older horror-heads who wanted to see what the fuss is about.

Obsession (2025) isn't just a young person's movie, it's a young person's movie of the modern age of young people.  

Today, on two separate occasions, one of my youthful neighbors posted to the neighborhood facebook page.  The first post was a photograph of a man laying facedown on someone's landscape of river stones and asking if it was okay to call 911.  She was met with a chorus of "yes, call 911"  The second was an hour later.  I guess the guy recovered/ woke-up and was not ambling around in a bit of a daze but also trying locked doors on cars and basically obviously trying to steal things.  Again, she posted "should I call 911?"  Like, lady, we have been over this, but, also, yes.  You are watching someone in need of help committing crimes.  

And that's kind of like this movie. 

I don't understand exactly how old these characters are.  They seem to be 21, but they otherwise seem to be teenagers?  Some living with their parents?  I guess that's the state of young adults in 2025.  I wouldn't know.

The behavior of the characters is certainly that of high-schoolers and early 20-somethings.  We're still harboring secret crushes everyone but the object of our affection knows about.  We're getting by on low-wage jobs and somewhat circling the drain.

Our lead (I will not say hero), Bear, is crushing on Nikki, who is in his friend circle.  He's being told by his pal, Ian, to just tell her how he feels.  But he can't.  Because he's a coward (sorry if you're offended, cowards).  He hits the local crystals and hoodoo store to get her a new crystal necklace and, instead, buys her something called a One Wish Willow, a novelty gift that will grant the purchaser one wish.  Pretty silly but fun.

But when, like a coward, he chickens out and doesn't tell her he likes her when the moment is completely right, he takes the stick and breaks it and wishes she'd love him more than anything else in the world.  

If you just imagined that monkey's paw with a finger closing, you are *correct*.  

Immediately Nikki seems different, and to his utter shock, it's worked.  And so pleased is he that he ignores some red flags roughly the size of the state of Colorado.

The film is largely predictable, and relies on style and performances because not only can we generally see where this is going, we can see see the plants that will be used later on in the movie.  

And, yeah, there's some good stuff in the movie.  There's one genuinely scary scene where our lead wakes up and Nikki is watching him from the corner.  If you've seen the movie, you know of which I speak.  But I also don't know why he doesn't just turn on a light.

And that's the kind of movie it is.  

I also really liked that a crystals store employees are such dismissive jagoffs to our lead, and that the helpline is so unhelpful.  More of that spirit in the movie would have maybe made for a slamdunk for me.

And if you're wondering why I mentioned the 911 question on the neighborhood facebook page...  I don't understand why our lead doesn't seek help.  Like, I think about The Exorcist and how Reagan goes through tests and whatnot...  

Maybe it's a question of budgets, but it becomes a huge question why the @#$% this guy doesn't take Nikki to get help.  You don't make this movie until this decade without a scene in an ER and a doctor checking Nikki over.  And now I guess this seems reasonable to the audience to just watch their friend unravel?  I mean, the kids in The River's Edge were more caring and proactive about their situation.  

And, yes, our lead knows what he did and used magic, which he previously did not know existed, but...  also, what's his plan here?  I'd think the demonic walking and screaming and urinating oneself would be a concern.  And certainly a turn off.

And that's really the horror of this movie - what a useless sack of shit Bear is and how he lets it tear down the woman he supposedly had feelings for.  And I do believe there's a huge underlined thing here about "nice guys" that speaks to the youth in a way I'm not quite grokking.

I don't think Bear is a villain - that's an easy read but feels lazy.  A lot of horror puts people through the ringer for just existing.  He's a cautionary tale as an ineffectual dope.  Would it be nice if he were better explained as a character?  Yes.  But it ain't that kind of movie, kid.

In this way, Obsession feels like a short film that's been stretched to what feels like a very, very long runtime for what it is.  

All in all, I get why people, especially The Youths(tm), liked it in a way I didn't quite get with, say, Barbarian.  And I absolutely get how Navarrette is going to be big after this.  She was always the best of the young actors on Superman and Lois, and I wish her well.  But she needs a role where she's not pined after by some nerd.

But if there's one thing I don't believe?  That whisp of a kid was opening that door covered in duct tape with one hand.