Some movies are best when you go in cold, knowing nothing about what is about to happen.
Optimally Obsession is one of those movies. But it is likely that you will have seen at least one trailer for this movie. So, you will probably know that Bear, being unable to tell Nikki how much he wants to date her, uses a novelty toy, the One Wish Willow, to wish that she loves him more than anyone else in the world.
And he gets his wish in the worst possible way. But even that won’t fully prepare you for just how freaky and visceral this movie will be.
This movie grabbed me and shook me with bizarre jump scares and incidents that sent literal chills through me. This movie is like the demented WTF child of Companion and Weapons.
The story centers around a friend group of two men and two women – Ian, Nikki, Bear, and Sarah – who hang out together without dating. This seemed pretty contrived at first, but they all work together at a music store and enjoy trivia nights at a local bar. This made it more reasonable that this kind of yearning setup could occur. Bear is obsessed with Nikki but can’t bring himself to ask her out on a date.
Bear, short for Baron, is played by actor Michael Johnston (Teen Wolf, Endangered Species, and many voices for games and anime including Shoichi from Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba). Bear is a weak and spineless pushover and Johnston plays this well as Bear is pulled along seemingly incapable of stopping his life spinning out of control.
Ian is played by long-time Curry Barker accomplice Cooper Tomlinson. Tomlinson and Barker created the social media sketch comedy channel “That’s a Bad Idea” and co-stared with Barker in his directorial debut “Milk & Serial.” In Obsession, Tomlinson’s Ian is the outgoing instigator pushing his friends around but usually in directions they kind-of want to go anyway.
Nikki is played by Inde Navarrette (Superman & Lois, 13 Reasons Why) with a psycho-girlfriend intensity that brings most of the scares and horror to the movie. The cinematography, lighting and editing of Nikki as her obsession grows increasingly unhinged amps up the creepy factor and adds some hints of an inner conflict between the Nikki that loves Bear and the part of her that is fighting against the imposed obsession.
One reliable feature of the film is Bear’s inability to get a spine and do what needs to be done. This enables outrageous, unhinged, and dangerous activities to continue and get worse until Bear finally tries to do some of the hard things needed to stop the insanity. The climax is engineered to maximize Baron’s inability to act into a nail-biting frenzy. The film manages to land the ending very well and you should leave the theater with your head spinning from the mayhem.
Rating: 10/10
Obsession screened at the 2026 SIFF and opens nationally on May 15, 2026.
* * * * *
Produced by James Harris, Haley Nicole Johnson,
Christian Mercuri, Roman Viaris
Written and Directed by Curry Barker
Starring Michael Johnston, Inde Navarrette,
Cooper Tomlinson, Megan Lawless, Andy Richter
