Obsession (2025) Review: A Wickedly Disturbing Horror Masterpiece That Will Haunt You Long After the Credits Roll

Introduction

I will be honest with you — I did not expect much going in. Another horror film about a guy obsessed with a girl, another supernatural twist, another festival darling that overpromises and underdelivers. I have seen that movie a hundred times. But Obsession is not that movie. Not even close.

Directed by Curry Barker — a guy who built his name making horror shorts on YouTube with practically no budget — Obsession premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in September 2025 and has been quietly building a reputation ever since as one of the most unsettling, uncomfortable, and genuinely brilliant horror films in years. Now that it is finally hitting theaters on May 15, 2026, the rest of the world is about to find out what festival audiences already know. This one is special.

What Is This Film Actually About?

Bear (Michael Johnston) works at a music store. He is quiet, a little lost, and hopelessly in love with his childhood friend and coworker Nikki (Inde Navarrette). He has never told her how he feels. Instead of being honest, he does what a certain type of person does — he looks for a shortcut.

That shortcut comes in the form of a strange antique toy called the "One Wish Willow", bought from a crystal shop whose cashier explicitly warns him that most customers end up regretting it. Bear snaps the branch. Makes his wish. And Nikki, almost overnight, falls for him completely.

For about five minutes, it feels like a dream. Then it starts to feel like something else entirely.

Nikki's love does not behave like love. It behaves like something that has taken love's shape but hollowed out everything soft inside it. She becomes clingy, then erratic, then terrifying. She screams at things only she can see. She cannot let him go. And the harder Bear tries to undo what he has done, the worse it gets — for both of them.

Obsession is not really a story about a supernatural curse. It is a story about what it costs when you choose your own desire over another person's freedom. And it does not let anyone off the hook — not Bear, and not the audience either.

[📸 IMAGE: Insert an early, warmer still of Bear and Nikki together at the music store]

The Good

Inde Navarrette Is Extraordinary

Let me just say it plainly — Inde Navarrette gives one of the best horror performances I have seen in a very long time. What she is asked to do in this film is genuinely difficult. She has to be likable, then unsettling, then heartbreaking, then absolutely terrifying — sometimes within the same scene. She pulls all of it off without a single false note. There is a moment somewhere in the second half of this film where she does something with her eyes that made the person sitting next to me grab my arm. That is not a jump scare. That is just pure, controlled, devastating performance.

Michael Johnston is also quietly excellent. Bear is not an easy character to play because he is not innocent — he made a selfish choice and he knows it — but Johnston makes you feel his guilt and his grief in a way that keeps you invested even when you want to shake him.

The Tension Never Lets Go

Curry Barker shoots this film in a very deliberate way — wide frames, centered compositions, extra space above the characters' heads. It sounds like a small thing, but it makes every single scene feel slightly wrong, like the world itself has shifted just a degree or two off-axis. The tension in Obsession is not built from jump scares or loud music stabs. It is architectural. It is in the way a room is framed, the way a conversation is cut, the way silence is used. By the third act, you will feel it sitting on your chest.

It Has Something To Say

The best horror films are always about something real underneath the genre surface. Obsession is about the specific kind of harm that comes from treating another person as a solution to your own loneliness. It is about cowardice dressed up as romance. It is about the difference between loving someone and wanting to possess them. These are not comfortable ideas, and the film does not make them comfortable. It just shows you what they look like when they play out to their natural conclusion — and then it makes you sit with that.

[📸 IMAGE: Insert a tense, atmospheric still — nighttime or Nikki mid-breakdown]

The Not-So-Good

Bear's Passivity Will Frustrate Some People

There are moments in the second half of this film where Bear stays in situations that no reasonable person would stay in, and while I understand that this is intentional — his inability to act is literally the point — it does occasionally strain credibility. If you are the type of viewer who yells at horror characters for making bad decisions, this film will give you plenty of material.

The Pacing Is Episodic

The film moves through its horror sequences in a way that can feel slightly disconnected at times — more like a series of escalating incidents than one smoothly unfolding narrative. It never broke my engagement, but I noticed it.

Direction, Visuals & Score

Cinematographer Taylor Clemons does remarkable work here. The visual language of this film is consistent, intentional, and deeply uncomfortable in all the right ways. Production designer Vivian Gray rebuilt a house in Burbank to serve as Bear's late grandmother's home, and the result is a space that feels genuinely inhabited — cluttered with the kind of life that accumulates over decades — which makes the horror that unfolds inside it feel like a violation of something real.

Composer Rock Burwell's score is the kind that you feel more than you notice — which is exactly what a great horror score should do. The needle drops throughout the film are perfectly chosen: funny and wrong in the best possible way.

[📸 IMAGE: Insert a wide-angle still showing the film's visual style and framing]

Final Rating

⭐ 8.5 / 10

Bold, funny, tragic, and genuinely terrifying — Obsession is the kind of horror film that stays with you. Not because of what it shows you, but because of what it makes you think about yourself.

Yes. Without hesitation. But know what you are walking into — this is not a fun Halloween-night horror film. It is the kind that gets under your skin and stays there. If you have ever justified a selfish decision by telling yourself you meant well, Obsession will have a few things to say to you personally.

For fans of Barbarian, Talk to Me, and Get Out — films that use horror to say something true about human behavior — this belongs in that conversation. Curry Barker is the real deal. And Inde Navarrette is about to become a name everyone knows.

Obsession hits theaters on May 15, 2026. Go see it.

Rated R  |  Runtime: 1h 48min  |  Director: Curry Barker  |  Stars: Michael Johnston, Inde Navarrette, Cooper Tomlinson  |  Distributor: Focus Features  |  IMDB: 7.6/10  |  Metascore: 78/100