SXSW 2026 | Movie Review: A Man’s Loneliness Leads To Deadly Consequences For The Woman He Loves In Stomach Turning and Heartbreaking “Obsession”
11/12 ForReel Score | 4.5/5 Stars
In a world where it feels like everyone has collectively lost their minds, many will point to the “male loneliness epidemic,” especially lonely men. That phenomenon by and large refers to men who have no ability to like women as people and therefore barely interact with them. There’s a second tier that is often missed. Men who are competent enough to have women in their lives but have ulterior motives towards them that they are not mature enough to voice for fear of ruining everything. That is the type of man that Curry Barker masterfully cuts down to size in his horror comedy Obsession. In order to avoid having a single awkward conversation, Barker’s protagonist hollows the mind of the girl he’s afraid to confess his feelings for and as such gets a “relationship” that breaks the scale of how toxic one dynamic can be.
Bear (Michael Johnston) and his friends are music shop employees who seemingly all stayed in their hometown after high school. He’s had long standing feelings for Nikki (Inde Navarrette) that he refuses to express despite being very close with her. Drowning in his nervousness, he goes to a kitschy magic shop and buys a “One Wish Willow” in the hopes of bringing good luck. After the group’s weekly bar trivia, he takes Nikki home and completely botches the opportunity to confess his love, pissing her off. In his sorrow, he opens the willow and wishes that Nikki would love him more than anybody else in the world. She comes right back out of her house and lures him in to stay with her. The two start dating, but as time goes on it becomes clear that something with Nikki is not quite right. She’s acting clingier, losing her grip on her motor skills and often spiraling into nonsensical anger whenever slightly inconvenienced. It only gets worse from there.
This is ultimately a “scary behavior” horror movie and it thrives because of a phenomenal performance from Inde Navarrette that will soon become iconic. When we meet Nikki, she is intelligent and funny but also pretty guarded. Someone who you have to show love towards to get it back. When the shift occurs, it is as if Nikki is being puppeteered and pulled apart by an unnatural desire for Bear. Navarrette’s eerie facial expressions, cacophonous screams and violent tantrums never cease to be startling. Barker paces her outbursts perfectly, knowing exactly when to let us sit in a simple uneasy moment and when to make our stomach drop when she snaps. This could’ve easily felt like a misogynistic excuse to have a woman act crazy and demanding to feed off of certain men’s incorrect notions of how women act. Instead, it is so clear to us that Nikki is completely out of control of her own body and mind, and my heart broke for her a little more with each outburst. Some of her behavior in pursuit of pleasing Bear is truly mortifying unforgettable stuff that will hopefully bring Navarrette to the top of every casting director’s list. Frankly, with Amy Madigan as a real contender for and Oscar for her role in Weapons, Navarrette should be in conversation for this year’s horror Oscar nomination.
Meanwhile, Johnston’s Bear is a slimy ball of self pity. Even when it is clear that Nikki needs serious help he constantly tries to deflect when met with concern from buddies Ian (Cooper Tomlinson) and Sarah (Megan Lawless). They’ll actively point out untruths that Nikki has told and he’ll still slither his way through it. It is a perfect embodiment of someone who has caused deep harm but has so intrinsically framed themselves as a “nice guy” that they cannot admit it. Tomlinson and Lawless aren’t quite as rich but they do what they can with being utterly mortified by the behavior they’re witnessing.
Don’t expect a ton of shocking setpieces. This is a true social thriller. Almost all of the scares come from Nikki’s awkwardness and anger, which is more nauseating than any gore can dream of being. Barker’s escalation of Nikki’s spiral is perfectly calibrated and when the film does explode into violence in its’ late stages, it is even more startling. It all leads to an emotionally devastating ending that feels both inevitable and deeply cruel. The scares will be secondary in your memory of Obsession. It is the heartbreak for Nikki that may keep you up at night.
Obsession is an early contender for best horror film of the year. At times it channels the delirium of The Shining in its gradual explosion of an abusive relationship linked to psychosis. Barker has established himself as a new marquee name in the genre but part of me hopes that he doesn’t go larger in scale too fast with his follow up films. This works because it is so intimate and full of new faces that allow us to entirely believe that these are ordinary, flawed people whose lives are destroyed by one reckless moment of impotence. I cannot wait to see which grievances Barker chooses to air next.