The horror genre has a talented new storyteller with Curry Barker in his sophomore feature Obsession, as well as scream queen in the making with star Inde Navarrette.
In the film from writer and director Barker, Bear (Michael Johnston) makes a wish on a cheap novelty toy, a One Wish Willow, that his longtime friend Nikki (Navarrette) will love him more than anything else in the world. The wish is granted immediately, with sinister and gory consequences ensuing.
It’s ultimately a movie about consent and the importance of communication in dating and relationships. This whole bloody affair could have been avoided if Bear could have worked up the nerve to tell his friend how he feels.
Navarrette does her job like a pro, delivering a chilling performance as a possessed lovesick young woman, with the real Nikki being tortured and trying to break free. It’s terrifying and exhilarating trying to guess what she’ll do next and how far she’ll take this romantic fixation, delivering demonic mood swings and creepy mannerisms that will keep audiences clutching their seats.
Focus Features and Universal have built hype around the film and Nikki, creating a text line for fans to talk to the character, who is known to appropriately light up people’s phones in the middle of the night. Meanwhile, street advertisements featuring distressing graffiti in Nikki’s handwriting, expressing her love for Bear.
Barker, who made his debut with 2024’s Milk & Serial, sets an unsettling cinematic atmosphere in his horror breakout, creating a familiar sleepy experience of disenchanted youth, only for the rug to be snatched out under the audience as the terrifying reality sets in.
My only gripe is that there are only two kill scenes, and they are wildly disproportionate. One character is given enough blood and gore to nearly warrant an NC-17 rating, while the other character’s death felt like a lazy afterthought played for laughs.
OK, I have two gripes — Andy Richter is in the movie for all of two minutes as the characters’ boss, and he has maybe one line. Seems like a waste of a comedic legend.
Overall, Barker nails his sophomore feature in a growing new cohort of YouTube creators-turned-horror filmmakers, delivering a chilling moviegoing experience and establishing his style ahead of a busy slate that includes Blumhouse’s Anything But Ghosts and A24’s Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
Producers are James Harris, Haley Nicole Johnson, Christian Mercuri and Roman Viaris.
Title: Obsession
Distributor: Focus Features/Universal Pictures
Release date: May 15, 2026
Director-screenwriter: Curry Barker
Cast: Michael Johnston, Inde Navarrette, Cooper Tomlinson, Megan Lawless, Andy Richter
Rating: R
Running time: 1 hr 49 mins
