‘Obsession’ Movie Review | DIFF 2026
Obsession accomplishes the impossible. It takes one of the most beautiful human experiences and makes it crawl under your skin. It’s natural to crave human connection or the innate feeling of being wanted. No one ever considers the most extreme version of this scenario. What if someone needed you like a heroin craving? Filmmaker Curry Barker apparently has thought about this extensively. There are familiar genre elements we have seen before. The “be careful what you wish for” trope is a familiar playground for horror. But Barker brings new games to the sandbox, orchestrating wildly bizarre scenarios that are horrific, uncomfortable, and surprisingly funny.
I attended a screening of Obession at the Dallas International Film Festival 2026. Read more of my thoughts on it below. The Blumhouse and Focus Features film releases in U.S. theaters on May 15, 2026.
What is Obsession about?
The film centers on Bear (Michael Johnston), a hopeless romantic who has quietly loved his coworker and best friend Nikki (Inde Navarrette) for a long time. The film has a calm, Dawson’s Creek–type setup as we are introduced to four close friends. Also within the circle is Ian (Cooper Tomlinson), the more confident guy among the coworker/friend group, with a fraternity-boy arrogance, and Sarah (Megan Lawless), a more hardened spirit who is struggling to get accepted into college due to past mistakes.
Bear is the most reserved among the four, possessing an overly nice demeanor to a fault. Even when a woman clearly signals she likes him, he tends to fumble his words. And it’s abundantly clear why he adores Nikki. She is beautiful, the life of the party, and they are quite close friends and can talk for hours.
The writing does a strong job of setting up these character dynamics, with subtle details embedded in their relationships. For example, there is a small reveal about their friendship that had been quietly unfolding, unbeknownst to one or two characters. Still, Barker’s script insinuates it through careful nuances in their behavior.
After the friendship dynamics are in place, Bear and Nikki’s connection comes to a head when she reveals she is quitting the job. He goes to buy her a gift from a local shop that closely resembles EarthBound, with spiritual rocks, incense, etc. One of the products inside is this novelty gift labeled “One Wish Willow,” but as he attempts to make his move, he fumbles his words again. Out of frustration, he follows the box’s directions, breaks the stick, and wishes for Nikki to love him more than anyone else. And almost immediately, Nikki begins acting out of character.
Inde Navarrette gives a powerhouse performance
His dream begins to come true. Nikki starts expressing admiration for everything involving Bear. His presence, his scent, and the home he lives in become Nikki’s favorite things. But Nikki begins to swing wildly between affectionate and sweet and erratic and borderline toxic. I’m not familiar with Curry Barker’s previous efforts, but as terrifyingly uncomfortable as these moments can be, they are also filled with humor.
Nikki’s controlling reactions are so extreme in their delivery that they make you uncomfortable enough to chuckle. There were several moments when the sequence was equally terrifying, yet the audience was laughing at the absurdity of it all. For example, Bear tries to get out of bed, and Nikki suddenly starts screaming a long, drawn-out, vicious “Stay,” until he obeys.
Navarrette gives a star-making performance as Nikki. She chews every scene with electrifying execution, pushing the extremes with her facial expressions and smiles, and even when she cries, it feels like an otherworldly monster is wailing within her face. One of the best performances by an actress I’ve seen so far this year.
Adding to Navarrette’s incredible performance is cinematographer Taylor Clemon’s approach to night sequences. The industry currently has an obnoxious standard to shoot night scenes in dimly lit settings. Wolf Man notoriously had complaints from moviegoers about how visually dark the presentation was during the movie’s finale. With Obsession, the choice of dimly lit night settings surprisingly works.
In one sequence, Bear wakes up and notices Nikki is out of bed, positioned in a shadowy, dark corner, watching him sleep. When she speaks, we can barely make out her face in the dark, but she almost appears different, like a creature. The viewer will squint to see her face, but at the same time, there is hope it will remain hidden.
Final thoughts on Obsession
The horror sequences are unforgettable. It’s not the kind of horror meant to create jump scares or trick the audience. In fact, Barker seems aware that the viewer can predict when something terrible will happen. But the brilliance of the script is that it creates that expectation, and the fulfillment is sometimes ten times worse, or even more bizarre, than expected.
When Nikki acts out to maintain control over Bear, she is fully committed to ensuring the entire environment recognizes her dominance. If she has to kill someone, it is done with a brutality that feels absurdly greater than one imagines. It leans straight into the crazy, and the audience can’t help but laugh or sit awestruck by the insanity unfolding.
Obsession is one of the best films of the year and could be one of the best horror films of the summer. There are genuinely unsettling sequences here, with intelligently constructed moments of unease and awkwardness. It’s the feeling of being goaded into an argument in public that you cannot escape. It’s the awkwardness of someone chastising their romantic partner in a parking lot, wondering whether you should intervene or remain a spectator. Furthermore, it’s one of the year’s biggest surprises and must be seen with an audience.
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