Obsession (2026)

Score: 5 / 5

Be careful what you... oh, you know.

Curry Barker, the 26-year-old former YouTuber, has crafted what might be the defining horror film of 2026, and it's only his first theatrical release. His directorial debut, Milk & Serial, an excellent found footage horror flick from a couple years ago, failed to be picked up by a distributor, so he released it on YouTube, where it went viral, much like his short films. And since the release of Obsession in May, it has become one of the highest-grossing indie films of the year and one of the highest-grossing, ensuring that Barker has only just entered the realm of exciting new horror artists. As of this writing, he has announced his third film as a horror-comedy backed by James Wan's company, an A24-backed reboot of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and an original horror film for Universal. This reminds me of the successes of similar artists like David F. Sandberg (Lights Out, which led to Annabelle: Creation, Shazam!, Shazam! Fury of the Gods, and Until Dawn), Kane Parsons (of this year's Backrooms), and Chris Stuckmann (of last year's Shelby Oaks). 

Turning our current anxieties around control and consent -- especially between genders, but also socially -- into a scalpel cutting right to the heart of horror, Barker gives us the story of a young man who just wants to be loved by the girl he likes. There has been a resurgence of such films lately, often genre-bending, always led by a strong young actress who fights the terrible restrictions put upon her by insecure and violent men (think of Companion and Promising Young Woman, for starters). Obsession, carving out its own niche, hinges on magic to work, or at least something supernatural and inexplicable. Taking its hint from nightmare scenarios spawned by gameplay and/or playful trinkets, the vehicle of this horror is a stick called the "One Wish Willow" sold in a witchy little new age shop for a few dollars. With one's spoken wish while breaking the twig, the thing is said to come true. 

A veritable genie's wish or monkey's paw for a new generation, the One Wish Willow's power manifests in unexpected and usually unpleasant ways. This is the rising action of the film, which follows the misguided desires of young Bear, the nickname of Baron, your archetypal boy next door. He's a sweet fella, a nice guy, who doesn't want his coworker and hardcore crush Nikki to know his feelings. Telling her will be awkward and weird, as is demonstrated in the film's harrowing first shot as he delivers his speech declaring his love to the camera and an offscreen female voice. So, what if he waits for the right moment...indefinitely? Or, better yet, what if he just announces his feelings at his next trivia night with friends? That's his plan, anyway, much to the frustration of his friend and confidante, Ian (Cooper Tomlinson, apparently a longtime friend and collaborator with Barker). Ian is also their coworker, along with Sarah (Megan Lawless), who harbors her own crush on Bear. I found myself repulsed by this foursome of people who are clearly their own best friends, and while I think we're meant to care about them, I think we're also meant to feel that they're a bit too insular and too emotionally disconnected from each other and reality.

That's not relevant at all, these days.

Barker's construction of this film's spiraling plot is deceptively simple, shoving his characters into miserable and horrid emotional and existential traps and forcing us to watch the often relatable consequences. One of the more uncomfortable cinematic experiences of the year is following around a guy we've all been at some point as we grow to realize that his "nice guy" caricature is inauthentic and desperate, manipulating others not explicitly but by planning his own actions to get them to do what he wants them to do. All the while, he justifies it to himself and us. After all, he's suffering, too, and we're meant to see and feel that. Michael Johnston's acting as Bear is award-worthy, if only because his sweaty and teary face is contorted into such grotesque images of horror so consistently in the film, whenever he's not hiding behind a meek and mild mask. 

His insidious obsession with Nikki climaxes early in the film, when he snaps his stick to make Nikki love him more than anyone else in the world. He should have been more specific.

Who among us hasn't wished something ghastly -- or even potentially ghastly -- in the heat of a charged moment? We sympathize with him in the moment, after a highly economic narrative setup by Barker, and while we don't like it, it doesn't really settle in until he looks out the car window to see Nikki's black silhouette in front of the door she was supposed to have entered. This is going to be bad. 

While I won't spoil the rest of the plot here, as its cruel spiral features some truly nasty revelations best served raw, I want to speak on Inde Navarrette's performance as Nikki, who indeed is suddenly and horrifically held in thrall of Bear. The film plays with the extent of her agency and self-awareness in pretty cool ways, including moments in which we think she may be earnest and lucid and when she's forcibly playacting, and even when she's clearly being controlled by an outside force. Baker himself seems to know this, and he brings his cinephilia to task here, referencing other horror films about female agency with specific shots and plots points that reminded me of The Exorcist, Evil Dead, Smile, Possession, and of course Fatal Attraction. But Navarrette's similarly award-worthy performance is shockingly, devastatingly physical. Her frenzied movement and unpredictable body language is a masterclass in nonverbal communication, especially of her facial muscles, often pulled taut when seen in super close-ups where she morphs into such controlled and unbelievable visages that Lon Chaney would be impressed. Which is insane, because she's also delivering richly nuanced lines, often in doublespeak, while manically altering her vocal output. It's hard to know what of her performance may have been enhanced by various practical or special effects or post-production ADR, but regardless, it's exactly the kind of performance that makes a star.

This film might spark heated debate about things like using women for exploitative horror and the extent to which we really get any female perspective in the film at all -- there isn't really any justification or redemption for the female brutalization here -- but I wonder, too, if that is kind of the point. There is cruelty being done to women in this world of desperate, incel-coded men who live online and disregard their material impact on the world, so we need to see that and recognize it and take steps to address it. 

And we haven't even talked about the actual violence in the film, which is considerable and considerably graphic. No doubt influenced by Ari Aster among others, Barker lets the gorehounds have their fill as much as the intellectual crowd. Bear continues to cuddle Nikki even after he suspects that her soul is being tortured in hell while a demon possesses her body -- one of several possible "behind-the-scenes" explanations for what's happening here -- which is a moment of scarring emotional violence. In another scene, a character is bludgeoned to death and we see all of it; the scene reportedly had to be edited down from its original vision to avoid an NC-17 rating. These two kinds of violence are paired appropriately and thoughtfully by Barker's screenplay even as he deliberately skews our pacing and visual composition expectations, keeping us always unsettled. Beware, ye who enter here. Obsession is a hell of a ride.