Movie Review: Obsession (2026)
Inde Navarrette and Michael Johnston in a scene from 'Obsession'
Cinema repeatedly returns to a familiar male fantasy—perhaps because men keep finding new ways to demonstrate that they have "created" it: a woman is written, molded, programmed, and brought into existence through sheer desire. She responds to loneliness, insecurity, humiliation, and longing.
*Pygmalion* gives us Galatea. *Ruby Sparks* allows a blocked novelist to revise his dream girl by typing commands into a manuscript. That film and *Ex Machina* transport this fantasy into the age of artificial intelligence, where love can be designed, simulated, or weaponized via screens. Then, last year’s *Companion* transformed that fantasy into one of the sharpest genre films of recent times—a movie about control, consent, and the terrifying realization that someone else might label the subversion of your autonomy as "love."
Kari Barker’s *Obsession* falls into the same category, though it is a bit rougher around the edges. It lacks the sleekness or the polished emotional architecture of *Companion*, yet it is earnest, dark, and—in its own blunt-force way—wired into the ugly little circuits of modern desire. Barker renders the premise almost like a fairy tale: Bear Bailey (Michael Johnston), a shy music-store employee pining for his friend Nikki Freeman (Inde Navarrette), buys a wish-granting trinket from a crystal shop, desiring that Nikki love him more than anyone else in the world.
This is not romance. It is a man outsourcing his rejection to a supernatural customer-service department. The irony is that the universe takes him seriously.
The obsession is at its most intense when he realizes that Bear’s desire isn't about love, but about avoidance. He doesn't just want Nikki; he wants to bypass the act of asking—that awkward situation, the humiliation. He wants to avoid the possibility of her looking at him, smiling affectionately, and saying no. Worse yet, she might say she sees him as a little brother—an emotional death sentence that men of Bear’s ilk spend years turning into personal mythology.
Barker is astute here; he doesn't portray Bear as a cartoonish predator. Instead, Bear is quiet, nervous, and slightly pathetic; Johnston plays him with such dignity and sorrow that we understand why those around him repeatedly give him the benefit of the doubt. That benefit is crucial. Horror films about "nice guys" only work when the "nice" aspect feels socially plausible. Bear isn't the scariest or weirdest person in the room. He is the kind of man who seems so harmless that he defies suspicion—and that is often how harm quietly creeps in.
This story could easily have devolved into a trite morality tale: a man harbors a selfish desire, and the man gets punished. Fortunately, *Obsession* is far more complex. Bear is terrified by what happens to Nikki, yet he hesitates to relinquish the benefits of his actions. He can grasp that something is wrong, even while embracing the aspects of that wrongdoing that make him feel good. It is this troubling paradox that Barker repeatedly brings to the fore. Bear wants to maintain his innocence even while pursuing the consequences of his desire. He craves Nikki’s affection but not her pain; he wants to realize his fantasy without paying any price.
Well, good luck with that, Bear.
It is hard to overlook the film's timeless quality. I don’t think *Obsession* should be pigeonholed merely as "incel horror"—that label might diminish the nuances and complexities of Barker’s work. Yet, the film clearly speaks to a culture where rejection is often reframed as a grievance, where love morphs into entitlement, and where intimacy is discussed less as a relationship and more as a form of access. Bear isn't seeking mutual understanding. He doesn't want to become braver, kinder, more honest, or truly worthy of Nikki’s attention. He simply wants Nikki’s will to align with his own.
Nikki: Grappling with Rewrites and Stasis
Inde Navarrette is the reason *Obsession* transcends its clever premise. Her work here is extraordinary—and this isn't just an ordinary "breakout performance" of the sort people cite when an actor simply screams loudly. Navarrette must portray multiple versions of Nikki without turning the role into a mere stunt: the authentic Nikki before desire takes hold; the obsessed Nikki conjured by Bear’s wish; the near-possessed Nikki whose devotion turns feral; and the trapped Nikki who occasionally surfaces long enough to comprehend what has been done to her.
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