This article contains spoilers for Obsession.
If you had to think of the scariest plot for a horror film, what would you pick? Would you go for a classic cabin-in-the-woods, murderer-on-the-loose vibe? Are you more of a paranormal ghost girlie? Or would you pick something even more blood-curdlingly frightening? Something so terrifying, you’re afraid of actually encountering it in your day-to-day life?
Well, if you’re into the latter, you’re in luck because 26-year-old director Curry Baker has made a film about the most spine-chilling thing of all for his generation: telling someone you fancy how you really feel.
Over the weekend, I went to see Baker’s supernatural horror, Obsession, which taps into our current crisis of vulnerability via the unrequited love story of Bear (Michael Johnston), a music shop employee who’s in love with his friend Nikki (Inde Navarrette). At the start, we see Bear practicing how he’ll confess his feelings to her, but when he actually has the chance — with Nikki asking him directly, “Do you like me?” — he bottles it.
So far, so normal. Except earlier that day, Bear bought a ‘One Wish Willow’ from a crystal shop — a novelty toy that promises to grant its user one wish. After screwing up his opportunity to tell Nikki how he feels, Bear decides to use his wish, asking the toy to make Nikki love him more than anyone else in the world.
Against all odds, the wish comes true, and Nikki immediately becomes obsessed with Bear, losing herself in the process. Lots of scary stuff ensues: male entitlement, exploitation, cowardice, and a dead cat sandwich (you’ll have to watch). There’s also, obvi, lots of gore and even some murder.
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The film first hit cinemas on May 15, but has been building in popularity since, seeing a week-on-week rise in ticket sales that’s put it on course to become one of the most profitable films of all time. It’s also sparked a bunch of social media theories and debate, such as: Would Nikki have reciprocated Bear’s feelings if he’d told her how he felt? Did Bear ever really love Nikki, or did he just want to possess her? Is Nikki actually Bear’s dead cat? (No, lol.)
Although pop culture and literature are filled with disastrous attempts to impact the course of people’s affections — from A Midsummer’s Night’s Dream to Practical Magic — Obsession brings this trope into the online dating era by cannily drawing on and harnessing the anxieties of Gen Z and millennials, for whom romantic failure is, genuinely, a debilitating fear.
Like Bear, so many of us are too afraid to speak or act candidly with our dates in case we face rejection or, worst of all, embarrassment. Instead, we act aloof, hoping the other person will show us how they feel first; we decipher texts with a jury of friends (or social media followers) instead of asking the sender what they really mean; and we opt for avoidance and silence — or, y’know, a supernatural wish — over difficult conversations and risk-taking.
In our attempts to avoid this perceived romantic humiliation — whether IRL or online — at all costs, our dating lives have become defined by miscommunication, misery, and a tendency to dehumanise one another. Throw in a little magic and some brutal murder, and you’ve got the plot of Obsession.
According to a recent Hinge report, 35% of daters are holding back from having deeper conversations because they don’t know how to start, while 52% have felt ashamed after being emotionally vulnerable with someone. This isn’t wholly a gendered phenomenon, either (despite many of Obsession’s viewers joking that men will do anything to avoid saying how they really feel — a play on the ‘men will literally X instead of going to therapy’ meme), but a 2023 survey did find that 45% of men aged 18 to 25 have never asked a woman out in person, even though 77% of women aged 18 to 30 want to be approached more.
It’s not easy for anyone though, with 43% of straight Gen Z women saying they wait for the other person to initiate deep conversations, partly because they assume men don’t want to have them, while 48% of Gen Z men hold back from emotional intimacy because they don’t want to seem ‘too much’.
Obsession is, in a way, the extreme end point of this vulnerability crisis. In one way or another, all of the characters in the film face their unhappy endings because of it — even when, like Sarah (Megan Lawless), who gets killed by Nikki after confessing her feelings for Bear, they’re brave enough to shoot their shot. The film, then, is relentless in its torture of its anxiety-riddled young audience, whose fears will find no solace here. Instead, we’re left to make up our own minds about the ‘right’ way to approach dating today — and, for us, that’s the greatest horror of them all.
