Obsession absolutely traumatized me… and I say that complimentarily because it’s truly been awhile since a horror movie affected me so much. I think this one's going to go down as one of the best horror movies in recent years, especially given all the conversation it can inspire among audiences. And, when CinemaBlend chatted with the cast and writer/director Curry Barker, they had me thinking more introspectively about what I just watched. SPOILERS are ahead.
Aside from wondering what happens to Nikki after the final shot of Obsession, I also walked out of the movie very curious about the lore of the One Wish Willow. Inde Navarrette, who masterfully plays Nikki, makes one thing clear about the spell her character is put under:
It’s not demonic, I wanna emphasize that… Curry really nipped that in the bud at the very beginning of the process. It was not demonic, it wasn't a possession. It was a wish. And it was kind of like, for her, it was almost like this draw to him. I have this like veil that's over everything while the other Nikki is inside kind of peeping through that sheer material. But yeah, it was never anything of that sort.
OK, so this clears a lot up for me, because Nikki becomes so evil after Bear uses the One Wish Willow that the flick gives off vibes similar to those of a demonic possession movie. As Navarrette explains, the wish changes Nikki into something new, but the real Nikki is under there somewhere powerless and scared. For me, this logic clarifies the scene midway through the movie that sees Nikki ask Bear to “kill” her. It’s like the One Wish Willow part of her is sleeping, and the real Nikki is jumping out for a moment.
It’s actually scarier for me to think about there being no demons in Obsession, because it emphasizes how Bear’s wish is so messed up that it creates something very unnatural and cursed within Nikki. Curry Barker underlined Navarrette’s point to me with these words:
I would purposely go out of my way to look up films and be like, ‘This is not what we're doing’ 'cause it's very specific what we were trying to do. We didn't want it to feel demon possessed. We wanted it to feel like a realistic situation.
The fact that Obsession doesn’t involve demonic possession is also a testament to its originality. Of course, there's also the commentary that results from the horrors of Bear wishing for his friend to lose her autonomy as a person and skip to the part where she loves him more than anything. That being said, there’s still a lot of lore from the One Wish Willow that the audience is left to wonder about by the end of the movie. Michael Johnston (who plays Bear) told us this about why he was OK not knowing about all the rules of movie’s dark magic:
I think not focusing on the lore of the one with Willow was really smart. And, I like to tell Curry, ‘Hey, yo, you have a, now you have sequels you can explore it with it’, but I'm reading some comments and things and some of the things people are coming up with are smart and are crazy, and it really gets your mind going.
Truly, one of the best aspects of Obsession is that it's initiating a lot of discussions. I left the theater going, “Who was that guy on the phone?”, “Has anyone had a good wish with the One Wish Willow?” and “How much did Nikki try to communicate with Bear throughout it?” It’s clearly a winning concept, considering the positive reviews from critics and audiences alike amount to some of the best reactions from any 2026 movie release. (And to think this all started when Barker was watching The Simpsons reruns!)
Whether you've seen Obsession already or not, check it out in theaters now. Horror fans will be so glad they did!
