A horror movie that’s attached to you.
In the new horror movie “Obsession,” the only way the young man Bear (Michael Johnston from “Teen Wolf”) can gain the confidence of telling his crush Nikki (Inde Navarrette from “Superman & Lois”) how he feels is when he breaks a “One Wish Willow” and saying: “I wish Nikki loved me more than anyone.” And I think you know what would happen if somebody made a wish like that. No wonder the Genie in “Aladdin” said he couldn’t make anyone fall in love.
This is another elevated horror film to have the audience creeped out with nervous laughter and opened minds to what young filmmaker Curry Barker (“Milk & Serial”) is bringing to the genre. It’s the kind where you wonder when the guy will tell his friends about him making the wish and how they would react to something that sounds like a fantasy but is now part of his reality. And it’s the kind where a dead cat would be in the mix. The amazing thing to me is that “Obsessed” is released by Focus Features and not A24.
The popular fictional ’80s toy I’m speaking of is sold at a New Age store, which requires you to break the stick to make the one wish and suggests that people either buy them to collect or complain about them. But there are good reasons why someone would complain about their wish. The rules say you only get one wish and if you don’t like the wish, your death is the only way to cancel it. And as the Genie would say in Groucho Marx’s voice “No substitutions, exchanges, or refunds.”
Bear, Nikki, and their friends Ian (Cooper Tomlinson) and Sarah (Megan Lawless from “The Hate U Give”) all work at the same music store with Andy Richter playing their boss. And I was thinking about some “Clerks” vibes, especially when the main protagonist’s friend wears a hat, but we’re not going to have some pop culture references. We’re just going to let the movie allow us to read between the lines.
Bear is urged by Ian to admit to Nikki his feelings for her, but doesn’t have the confidence to go buys Nikki the “One Wish Willow” present to help show off his affection for her, but he chokes and says he left the gift at home. And then, after blowing his window of opportunity, he makes the wish for himself, and well, he should have been careful what he wished for.
When he leaves for work and it’s her day off, she stands there smiling and urinating on the floor like she’s Regan in “The Exorcist.” There’s even a shot of her puke and possibly excrement on the carpet that reminded me unfortunately of the old lady soiling herself in “The Front Room,” but this movie makes the right choice to not stoop at that level. When he takes her to a Boys Night and engages in a dare game that says: “Kiss the girl on your left,” she makes a frown and moves the other girl Sarah out of the way and has him kiss her. And she has outbursts that are either compulsive or otherworldly.
I saw this in Dolby and the possessed Nikki is required to scream very loud-like “you need to anticipate the screams by covering your ears” loud. And anything her compulsive demons make her do comes almost in the form of jump scares. Being a film critic who has made his own sermons about loud noises (read my “Midsommer” and “Undertone” reviews for my story), I think the nosies can be a little overbearing, but being a film critic who seeks nostalgia and originality, I found myself at the edge of my seat.
Under the brilliant direction of Barker, Johnston does a nicely understated job playing an awkward guy caught in the WTF mist of his irreversible wish, while Navarrette excels with a twisted demented nature. I’ve never heard of these young stars, but already I’m wishing them luck on their next roles. And I didn’t even have to break the One Wish Willow stick to wish. I think I’ll stick to throwing coins in the fountain. Thank you very much.
