OBSESSION (2025)

Genre: Horror/ Romance/ Thriller
Director: Curry Barker
Cast: Michael Johnston, Inde Navarrette, Cooper Tomlinson
Runtime: 1 hr 49 mins
Rating: M18 (Violence and Sexual Scene)
Released By: UIP
Official Website: 

Opening Day: 18 June 2026

Synopsis: After breaking the mysterious "One Wish Willow" to win his crush's heart, a hopeless romantic finds himself getting exactly what he asked for but soon discovers that some desires come at a dark, sinister price..

Movie Review:

"Obsession" arrives dressed as a horror movie: a cursed object, sudden personality changes, shadowy bedrooms and escalating violence. But its real shape is a nasty joke with a moral attached. Curry Barker takes the old warning “be careful what you wish for” and builds an entire movie around the uncomfortable question of what a wish reveals about the person making it.

Bear (Michael Johnston) is a shy music-store employee who has long been in love with his childhood friend Nikki (Inde Navarette). Rather than risk rejection by telling her how he feels, he breaks a mysterious “One Wish Willow” and wishes that Nikki will love him more than anyone else in the world.

The wording matters. Bear does not wish for the courage to be honest. He does not wish for Nikki to see him differently or give him a chance. He wishes for total certainty. He wants to skip the difficult, awkward part of forming a real relationship and go straight to being loved unconditionally.

Naturally, the wish works far too well.

Nikki immediately becomes intensely devoted to Bear, but the person he knew begins disappearing beneath a needy, unstable version of herself built entirely around his desires. At first, Bear seems almost pleased. The girl he likes finally wants him. But the attention quickly becomes impossible to manage, and his fantasy starts to resemble a trap.

That transformation is frightening, yet Barker often plays Bear’s situation like an awkward comedy sketch that refuses to end. His friends already understand that his crush on Nikki has become unhealthy. After the wish, Bear’s stiff reactions and hopeless attempts to act as though everything is normal become grim punchlines. A party spins out of control, ordinary routines become impossible, and each attempt to calm the situation only creates a worse problem.

The film’s rhythm is often setup, embarrassment, consequence - and then a much bigger consequence.

This is where "Obsession" becomes more interesting than a standard supernatural horror movie. The cursed Willow does not need a complicated history or a long explanation. It simply gives Bear enough rope to hang himself. Every disaster grows out of the difference between loving a person and wanting to possess an idealised version of them.

Bear thinks he wants Nikki. What he actually wants is a Nikki who exists entirely for him: beautiful, available, loyal and free of any needs that might get in the way of his fantasy. The movie gives him exactly that and then forces him to see how terrifying it is. He wanted affection without uncertainty, but uncertainty is part of dealing with another human being. Remove it and love stops being love. 

Bear is compelling partly because he is so frustrating. He is not a cartoon villain. He is timid, lonely and capable of recognising that something is wrong. Yet he repeatedly chooses whatever allows him to avoid discomfort. Even when Nikki’s condition becomes dangerous, Bear struggles to admit that his wish caused it. His punishment is not random. It is his own selfish logic reflected back at him and turned up to maximum volume.

Johnston wisely plays Bear as pathetic rather than charming. We understand why he is frightened, but hisperformance never asks us to excuse his decisions. Navarrette is even better as Nikki. She makes her funny, unsettling and strangely sad, often within the same scene. Brief flashes of the real Nikki remind us that the apparent monster is also the story’s main victim. She has been robbed of her personality and reduced to somebody else’s dream girlfriend.

The movie is not flawless. Its final stretch runs longer than the premise really needs, and several scenes repeat the same pattern of Nikki escalating while Bear freezes. The story also stays so close to Bear’s perspective that Nikki can sometimes feel pushed aside. More time inside her experience would have made the emotional consequences even sharper.

Still, "Obsession" works because it understands that the scariest thing is not the magical object. It is the wish itself.

Barker has made a horror-comedy in which supernatural punishment exposes an ordinary failure of empathy. Bear asks for perfect love and receives a nightmare because his idea of perfect love leaves no room for another person’s freedom.

That makes "Obsession" less a horror film in the traditional sense than a darkly funny cautionary tale. Its message is simple, familiar and surprisingly effective: choose your wishes carefully, because getting exactly what you ask for may be the worst possible outcome.

Movie Rating:

(Obsession is a darkly funny cautionary tale about how the fantasy of perfect love becomes a nightmare when desire turns into control)

Review by Gabriel Chong