‘Obsession’ Review: Curry Barker’s Horror Breakout Turns a Simple Wish Into a Nightmarish Relationship Spiral
Inde Navarrette stars as Nikki and Michael Johnston as Bear in OBSESSION, a FocusFeatures release. Credit: Courtesy of Focus Features / © 2026 FOCUS FEATURES LLC
Curry Barker’s Obsession transforms a familiar “be careful what you wish for” premise into a bracing, darkly funny, and genuinely disturbing horror film powered by a breakout performance from Inde Navarrette.
Getting what you wish for rarely ends well — but in horror cinema, it almost never ends well. Obsession, the latest film from Curry Barker, takes that idea and stretches it into something far more volatile, using a deceptively simple premise to explore love, control, and the psychological collapse that follows when desire stops behaving like desire and starts behaving like possession.
Barker, who first gained attention through YouTube comedy sketches and the low-budget horror experiment Milk & Serial, continues his transition into feature filmmaking with a project that feels both controlled and chaotic in equal measure. Obsession doesn’t reinvent the genre through spectacle or reinvention alone, but through escalation — taking recognizable romantic dynamics and pushing them into increasingly uncomfortable territory until they no longer resemble anything romantic at all.
At the center of the film is Bear (Michael Johnston), a socially awkward, deeply insecure employee at a music instrument store who is hopelessly infatuated with his co-worker Nikki (Inde Navarrette). Their dynamic exists in that familiar liminal space of workplace proximity and emotional imbalance, with Bear firmly convinced he is trapped in the “friend zone” while Nikki remains mostly unaware of the depth of his obsession.
Credit: Courtesy of Focus Features / © 2026 FOCUS FEATURES LLC
What changes everything is a small object: a novelty item called the “One Wish Willow,” which promises to grant a single wish when broken in half. When Bear impulsively uses it to make Nikki love him more than anyone in the world, the film shifts from awkward romantic longing into full psychological horror.
At first, the wish appears to work exactly as intended. Nikki’s behavior changes instantly, becoming intensely affectionate, physically expressive, and emotionally devoted to Bear in a way that initially feels like fulfillment of his deepest desire. But Barker is careful not to present this transformation as purely romantic fantasy. Instead, it quickly begins to curdle.
What follows is one of the film’s most effective structural decisions: rather than treating the wish as a shortcut to happiness, Obsession turns it into a destabilizing force. Nikki’s affection becomes increasingly overwhelming, then possessive, then frightening. The line between devotion and control collapses entirely, and Bear — who initially enjoys the attention — begins to realize he has no ability to regulate what he has created.
Inde Navarrette stars as Nikki in OBSESSION, a Focus Features release. Credit: Courtesy of Focus Features / © 2026 FOCUS FEATURES LLC
Michael Johnston plays Bear with a careful balance of discomfort and complicity. The character is not written as a traditional victim, and Johnston does not attempt to sanitize his behavior. There is a consistent sense that Bear is as responsible for the situation as he is trapped by it, which adds a layer of moral unease that the film never fully resolves.
Inde Navarrette, however, is the film’s defining force. As Nikki, she delivers a performance that constantly shifts between emotional authenticity and unsettling volatility. In moments where the character briefly seems to “snap out” of her altered state, Navarrette introduces a fragility that makes the horror sharper rather than softer. It is a performance built on contradiction — tenderness and threat occupying the same emotional space — and it anchors the entire film.
Inde Navarrette stars as Nikki and Michael Johnston as Bear in OBSESSION, a Focus Features release. Credit: Courtesy of Focus Features / © 2026 FOCUS FEATURES LLC
As the relationship deteriorates, Barker steadily transitions the tone from dark comedy into psychological horror, allowing scenes that initially play as awkward or even funny to gradually reveal their instability. The escalation is slow, but intentional, building toward moments of violence and emotional rupture that feel both surprising and inevitable once they arrive.
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One of the film’s most effective qualities is its refusal to treat dysfunction as externalized horror alone. Instead, Obsessionframes its central relationship as something inherently unstable from the beginning — the wish does not create love so much as remove boundaries, exposing the underlying imbalance that was already present.
The result is a film that is less about supernatural consequence and more about emotional distortion. Barker uses the genre framework to explore how desire can become coercive when left unchecked, and how quickly affection can turn into control when one person’s emotional reality is artificially amplified.
Inde Navarrette stars as Nikki in OBSESSION, a Focus Features release. Credit: Courtesy of Focus Features / © 2026 FOCUS FEATURES LLC
The film does occasionally linger longer than necessary in its second half, and at times the tension is stretched slightly beyond its breaking point. However, Barker’s control over tone — shifting between unease, discomfort, and outright horror — keeps the experience consistently engaging even when pacing wavers.
The final stretch of the film leans fully into horror territory, with sudden violent turns that reinforce the instability of everything that came before it. Without leaning into excess, Barker ensures that the emotional logic of the story remains intact even as the physical stakes escalate.
By the end of Obsession, what lingers is not just the horror of the situation itself, but the uncomfortable clarity of what it represents. This is not a story about a cursed object granting a wish — it is a story about what happens when emotional imbalance is amplified rather than corrected.
Inde Navarrette’s performance elevates the material beyond its premise, and Barker’s direction signals a filmmaker increasingly confident in using genre conventions to explore psychological discomfort rather than simply delivering shocks.
With Obsession, Curry Barker positions himself as part of the growing wave of horror filmmakers using the genre not just for scares, but for emotional excavation — and in doing so, delivers a film that is both unsettling and unexpectedly thoughtful.
RATING: ★★★★★
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“Obsession is a bracing, unsettling horror breakout from Curry Barker that takes a familiar wish-fulfillment premise and twists it into something far more disturbing. Powered by a standout performance from Inde Navarrette and a sharp lead turn from Michael Johnston, the film escalates from awkward romance into psychological horror with real bite. Barker’s direction signals a rising genre voice capable of turning emotional dysfunction into something genuinely terrifying.”
CREDITS
Director/Writer: Curry Barker
Cast: Michael Johnston, Inde Navarrette, Cooper Tomlinson, Megan Lawless, Haley Fitzgerald, Darin Toonder, Andy Richeter
Runtime: 1 hour 50 minutes
Rating: R
Distributor: Focus Features
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