The oldest lesson in fairytales is that wishes come with conditions. In 26-year-old YouTube creator Curry Barker’s breakout horror feature “Obsession,” the price of one young man’s longing is another woman’s horror.
Made for less than $1 million, and filmed on a tight 20-day production timeline, Barker’s film begins with a familiar fantasy.
Bear (Michael Johnston), is hopelessly infatuated with Nikki (Inde Navarrette), but lacks the courage to ask her out on a date. But then he acquires a mysterious “One Wish Willow” toy, and wishes for Nikki to love him “more than anything in the world.”
What follows is not a dark romance or fairytale, but a horror story about male desire and entitlement left unchecked. It taps into contemporary anxieties surrounding control, entitlement and the objectification of women. Nikki is not possessed by an evil spirit or a demon in any conventional horror sense. She gradually becomes trapped beneath the weight of Bear’s wish, stripped of her agency, personality, and ability to act on her own impulses and needs.
That distinction is what elevates Barker’s “Obsession” into an instant modern classic. Real horror — experienced daily by millions of women in abusive relationships — is not supernatural possession, but the eradication of selfhood.
