This article contains major spoilers for the 2026 horror movie Obsession.
“I wish Nikki loved me more than anything in the fucking world.”
Let’s unpack that.
Curry Barker’s 2026 horror flick Obsession is based on a simple premise: boy likes girl who probably doesn’t feel the same way about him, boy wishes she liked him too. It’s a tale as old as time, and one I’m sure most of us can relate to, but with one crucial difference. In Obsession, Bear (Michael Johnston) doesn’t just wish for Nikki’s (Inde Navarrette) affection — he wants her to love him more than anything else in the world. What he doesn’t realize is that his wish is impossible, and the only way to make it possible in our reality would be to overwrite Nikki’s personality and autonomy completely.
Now here’s where it gets tricky. Bear is written to be a sympathetic character at the start because, well, who wouldn’t be absolutely thrilled to suddenly have their crush reciprocate their feelings? For a while, that’s what the audience is falsely lulled into feeling. We recognize that, for Bear, this is a dream come true, and who are we to deny him that? But Obsession wastes no time in destroying that veneer. The moment the wish takes effect, we’re immediately, acutely aware that something is very wrong with Nikki. From the way she freaks out during their first kiss, to her setting up a disturbing shrine for his dead cat, the audience is forced to reckon with the fact that these aren’t just dating red flags. These are, in fact, clear signs that Nikki isn’t her usual self and requires professional help at the very least.
But guess who doesn’t care about these signs? Bear. Not only does he ignore the flashing neon signs screaming “THIS GIRL NEEDS HELP” from day one, he chooses to forge on ahead with this pseudo relationship. When Obsession gives us that cute couple montage with Bear and Nikki doing cute couple things, we’re once again lulled into a false sense of security, yet that same montage is laced with terrifying undercurrents and a sense of dread that this, of course, cannot last.
And indeed it does not last, because Nikki only gets worse. A mid-movie phone call reveals that post-wish Nikki isn’t Nikki at all, as Obsession tips its hand ever so slightly to let us know that there are supernatural forces at play here. The One Wish Willow is suggested to be a supernatural product, complete with its own supernatural customer service (with the rep voiced by Barker himself) to answer any questions you may have. When Bear calls the hotline to alter his wish — not to cancel it, mind you, but to alter it so it’s more manageable for him — the rep asks if he wishes to speak with the real Nikki. All we hear on the other side of the line are painful shrieks and screams, suggesting that the real Nikki is suffering somewhere else while an unknown entity dedicated to loving Bear marches around in her physical body.
From there, the red flags turn into unhinged acts of abuse and borderline crimes. From duct taping the front door (which still doesn’t faze Bear by the way) to wetting her pants and defecating on the floor because the entity literally doesn’t know what else to do with itself when Bear isn’t around, Bear continues to keep the relationship going. At this point, you might be wondering, why? Why would anyone do this? How could anyone live in a relationship like this?
The answer’s actually deceptively simple. Bear is selfish. His selfishness isn’t totally obvious at this juncture because Inde Navarrette does such a fantastic job of commanding the viewer’s attention when she’s onscreen doing all sorts of outlandish things, but it’s there. When you realize the entity does literally nothing else but stand in place and wait for you all day, you have to feel some sort of sympathy for someone like that.
The real gut punch comes as the film enters its final act though, when the real Nikki finally reveals herself to Bear in a moment of rare clarity and vulnerability. Trapped in her own body with no agency, Nikki begs Bear to kill her. His response: “What’s so bad about being with me?” Bear, my man, if all the other screwed up stuff Nikki was doing wasn’t enough to get you to stop to question your actions, this straight up cry for help should’ve been the last straw. But no, Bear somehow still manages to make Nikki’s plight about himself, and leaves the room as she continues to beg.
It’s only when the consequences become real — their mutual friend Sarah (Megan Lawless) gets her head bashed in with a brick by Nikki in a fit of jealousy — that Bear starts to consider the possibility of killing himself to break the wish. Even then, he’s half-assed about it, hemming and hawing with a gun to his head, ultimately deciding to overdose on pills instead. Even then he still can’t go through with it, as he forces himself to gag and throw up the pills. Right up till the very end, Bear is a selfish coward through and through who never puts Nikki’s needs before himself despite claiming to love her so much.
Bear’s Nice Guy nature rears its ugly head in his final scene with another mutual friend Ian (Cooper Tomlinson), who is revealed to have been in a casual situationship with Nikki for the past two years. In his desperation to be free of his wish, Bear begs Ian to make a wish to counteract his own, saying he can have Nikki once all this is over.
Aside from being a massively fun and entertaining horror flick about love going too far, in my view, Obsession is ultimately a commentary on female autonomy and what little regard men can have for it as long as it suits them. The film ends with Nikki finally breaking free of Bear’s wish, but make no mistake: this is not a happy ending for the poor girl. She may have regained her agency, but she’s left to deal with the consequences of the bloody massacre Bear has forced upon her. Like most of Obsession‘s brilliantly written gags and scares, it’s all funny until it’s not.
It occurs to me that Obsession was deliberately ambiguous about Nikki’s feelings towards Bear. While Sarah and Ian insist she never saw Bear as anything more than a brother, Nikki’s early scenes suggest some hint of affection that may even have skewed romantic. Leaving the audience wondering what could’ve been had Bear chosen differently is a small stroke of genius, but at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter what she really felt because she was always going to fall victim to Bear’s selfishness and casual cruelty.
Obsession may be a love story, but it certainly isn’t romantic.
