Notable Cast: Michael Johnston, Inde Navarrette, Cooper
Tomlinson, Megan Lawless, Andy Richter
I have to give Curry Barker some very intense respect. Not
only has his latest film, Obsession, been one of the biggest horror
films of all time at the box office, but he also did it with a film that asks
the age-old question, ‘What if a Gen Z romantic comedy was the most terrifying
thing to exist?’ The premise of so many romantic comedies, particularly those
in the 90s and 00s, prior to the genre being stripped for parts and sold
wholesale to streaming and television to be exploited as year-round bubblegum
movies, was based on a hook and then mined for comedic value. Barker seemingly
saw that and decided to take it in the other direction. The results, box office
receipts aside, are rather astoundingly effective. Obsession is
pitch-black perfect in its tones, a precise blend of dark humor and crippling
horror, and executed to the highest degree to deliver a generationally relevant
urban-legend-style morality tale.
There was intense hype for Obsession… and the hype is real.
To be fair, the hook of its premise is a well-trodden trail
for horror. Bear, played by Michael Johnston in a performance that one might
call ‘a half step away from dying of anxiety at any given moment,’ stumbles
across a cheap ‘wish fulfillment’ tchotchke called the One Wish Willow and uses
it to wish that the girl he has been pining for at work will love him more than
anyone. It’s a monkey’s paw scenario: once he breaks the willow piece for his
wish, after absolutely whiffing his chance to confess his feelings for her when
she just blatantly asks if he likes her, she becomes obsessed with him, and it
gets real fuckin’ scary from there. Not in a Lifetime movie way either. As the
tagline states, be careful who you wish for.