The Irony of ‘Obsession’

More clever than imaginative, more amusing than brimming with either tension or psychological insight, Curry Barker's Obsession is an often watchable, intermittently entertaining, yet ultimately thin, narrow horror movie that has all the substance of a short film. The basic premise deals with a monkey's paw-like object called "One Wish Willow" that grants Baron "Bear" Bailey (Michael Johnston) what he secretly, almost feverishly desires: to make Nikki (Inde Navarrette) fall head over heels for him. The consequences are predictably far from ideal, unfavorable, and even downright dangerous. Bear is the kind of "nice guy" who's too shy for his own good. He hesitates to admit his true feelings to Nikki, even when the opportunity arises early in the film. However, after the wish is granted and Nikki starts obsessing over him, many disturbing notions, like toxic fumes, emanate from the screen.

For instance, after learning that Nikki has lied to him about her father's health and after becoming increasingly shocked by her unusual movements and screams, Bear still sets aside his apprehensions because of the prospect of having not only Nikki's loyalty but also her body. Their sex is almost grotesque since it's evident that Nikki is not into it. When Ian (Cooper Tomlinson) asks why Nikki is suddenly acting differently, Bear doesn't mention One Wish Willow; he tries to maintain that their relationship is based on mutual affection. One can read it as an oppressor declaring that the oppressed adore him out of love when the reality is that they are being forced to act like devotees. By wishing that Nikki love him more than anything else in the world, Bear, after all, forces her to cherish him.

This spawns ideas about the loss of individuality and agency. Viewed as a whole, the film suggests that selfish individuals like Bear leave a trail of destruction behind due to their self-centered needs. These ideas, however, are only mildly suggested rather than developed with any real vigor. Ultimately, Barker, like Zach Cregger in Weapons, derives horror from shocks, gore, and jump scares. In the director's The New Yorker profile, he remembers how, as a young kid, the 2003 version of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre provided him with the biggest shock of his life. "But, honestly, I wanted to chase that feeling. I wanted to be shocked again. Which is kind of reflected in the way I write now," he adds. This line sums up what Barker really does in Obsession: he chases and dispenses shocks through old, creaky horror movie tropes, all of them revolving around characters doing weird, gross things.

Navarrette is a wonderful actor, and she contorts her face into unnerving shapes. Barker also produces some neat tricks simply by obscuring Nikki's face with dark shadows and dim lighting, making her look even creepier. Still, Obsession is nothing more than a haunted house of tricks. If it doesn't grab you or affect you deeply, that's because its horror is devoid of consequences or emotional scars; the characters are merely puppets doing the script's bidding. Barker only hands out details that tightly fit his narrow-minded schemes. His characters don't have a past, and their future is never in sight. Their personal lives, tastes, and experiences are filtered out to make room for purely functional information that exists only to move the plot wheels. It doesn't matter that Nikki lied about her father. She might just as well have lied about her sister, brother, mother, aunt, or cousin. Why does she hate her father? No explanation is offered. Nikki, Bear, Ian, and Sarah (Megan Lawless) are friends who work together at a music store owned by Sarah's father (Andy Richter). What type of music do they like? Are there musicians they all admire, or ones each admires individually? Do they plan to work at the store for their whole lives, or is this merely a temporary stop before they move on elsewhere?

Sarah waits for her chance to get accepted into an art college, but Barker uses both this detail and the character herself for a gory scene and a generalized, impersonal statement about a life cut short by tragic circumstances. Sarah's death, and even Ian's, is filmed with a sense of "gotcha!" excitement. They are props meant to help Barker achieve his shocking jump-scare effects. For a movie about the loss of individuality and agency, Obsession is itself filled with people who are empty and flat. Barker possesses them and moves them around rigidly to fulfill his own desires, just as a possessed Nikki is moved around rigidly to fulfill someone else's. This movie about the horrors of a lack of free will consists of actors who are used in a limited way—their freedom is sapped. Obsession is built on irony and contradiction, and Barker seems oblivious of this fact. That's the real horror here—one that fatally destabilizes the entire venture. In his single-minded zeal—or, if you prefer, obsession—Barker creates a vapid supernatural horror whose simplicity may partly explain its box office success. It's easy to read too much into a shallow affair like this, one that only lightly winks at and nudges toward complex themes and problems. Movies like Obsession and The Drama prove adept at pushing certain buttons and starting online debates, which translate into strong reception and commercial success. Obsession might not be a good movie, then, but it has certainly proved to be good business for Barker. Perhaps next time he can match that commercial instinct with greater intellectual and emotional depth. That might just be the Curry Barker movie worth going gaga over.

Written by - Vikas Yadav
Follow @vikasonorous on Twitter
Publisher at Midgard Times