Obsession
I have to say I hated this movie. It reads like a white mans understanding of 'love'
Bears initial wish that nikki 'loves him more than anyone in the world' doesnt warrent any of her behavior at all. Some may say "well you cant wish someone to love you so it gets wierd" which to me is a cop out. The opposite of love ISNT hate, its not danger, why would the over saturation of love become obsession?
The opposite of love isnt hate, its apathy. In my opinion, Nikki should have been apathetic to anyone other than bear, killing them makes absolutely 0 sense. The lens 'love' is looked at in this movie imo is narcissistic at best.
If a wish for love makes the love too great, why would they not illustrate that by her asking bear about himself, making him talk endlessly, learning every detail, stealing his clothes, singing songs from his childhood, the way they illustrated her obsession was so lazy and impersonal.
the cat sandwich was a very stupid gag designed to make the viewer uncomfortable, similar to why they open the movie with a dead cat. Its a desperate shock. The cat sandwich did not fit the storyline at all. Why would nikki feed him his cat....? how does that correlate to her being manipulated by a spell to be in 'love' (Some people may say that its because the spell is backfiring but again, that doesnt make sense. backfired love does not become a hateful action, it would become apathy) Why would she intentionally dig up his cat and cook it, to feed it to him? additionally the meat was fucking grey, he didnt smell the sandwich was not normal food? The cat was dead for like 2 weeks it would have been hard as a rock. idk the cat gag was just so desperate and as an animal lover it was incredibly hard to watch. It wasnt hard to watch because of the cruelty, it was because it was desperate and again, the creators of this movie have very little understanding or regard for inventive plot.
Additionally, Nikki doesnt even 'love' bear. If he said he wished nikki was obsessed with him id have little to critique as far as in-world dynamics are concerned. She doesnt even feign interest in anything he actually likes. what are bears hobbies? what are the things he cares about? Do we ever learn anything about who bear is or WHAT nikki "loves" about him? Havent they been friends for years? wouldnt she have knowledge about..... anything he likes at all?
If we allow the narrative that love tainted becomes obsession as the writers would have us believe, wouldnt nikki do more insideous things? not just obvious like duct taping the door, wouldnt she know things about him? Use that as leverage? Instead they just make her a desperate liar.
As far as the writing over all, it was really lazy. as a hair and makeup artist in union 798 and mostly working as dept head on features I also HATED the hair and makeup. it was very distracting and not polished at all, and the tiktok trend makeup was lazy and not even readable.
Specifics about this movie I would have changed:
The cat - Irrelivant to the movie, was placed for shock purely and genuinely pissed me off. Dont use a dead animal if the prop looks like shit, and using a dead animal for shock is a really pathetic start to a movie if its not specifically about how that death impacts the character. Remove the cat completely, or use the cat to continue a thruline of story.
Killing off friends - She should have killed bear instead. if shes that obsessed with him after she saw he was "unfaithful" triggering a "if you wont stay with only me we will be together in death" response makes more sense for an obsession than killing people she doesnt care about; if she loves bear more than anyone, she doesnt care about anyone else AT ALL.
the lying - It doesnt make any sense to me that loving bear makes her also desperate. as someone whos been infatuated with others, and had intense crushes id definitely make myself seem more aligned with what they liked, not just random lies to garner sympathy. if they would have used the lies to make her seem more similar to bear it would have made more sense.
No character building for nikki at all - We barely get any of nikkis personality. just that she gave a homeless guy someone elses money and maybe a 5 monute dialouge in the start of the movie. They spent an hour of her just being omonous and strange when they could have given us 15-20 minutes more of her background with bear.
The makeup - If they wanted her to feel "possessed" on a tight budget the tiktok 'uncanny valley' makeup was wholey a lazy decision. Ive been underpaid for features, you should still do GOOD work (the amount of fly aways, greasy skin, and the curls on the girl whos dad owns the video store were so fucking poorly done) Why wouldnt they just use reflective shadow on her eyes and keep her eyes lightly closed? theyd look like they were glowing. Or even glow in the dark powder thats skin safe!! Charge it and shoot low light (the entire film was basically a black screen for 35% of the film anyway)
Her style changing - this was such a barely there mechanic they claim they instituted, I hardly noticed it. For how aggressive everything else was in the film this was not the place to go quietly. Had they used the slow burn mechanic for everything this would have worked, but because of the decision to make the wish 'instant' this should have also been a jarring change, but again this film was mediocre so... of course.
TLDR: this movie is so overhyped and its just a masterbatory snuff film trying to appear 'woke' when it really just feels like an excuse for the director and producer to manipulate a young actress into working across a sub-par male actor. The creators dont seem to understand how to create a continuous storyline and instead rely on quippy gags and clickbait scenes that feel intentionally created to farm views and go "viral" (tiktok makeup, a few second snapshots that allude the movie is visually designed and interesting when in reality most of the movie is underlit and poorly designed.)
I realize I have a lot of opinions about this movie, but thats because mediocre dribble some white guy had his mommy and daddy underpay his friends for always gets to theater when good, honest artistic movies get left in the dust. While Im glad independant film is getting attention, we dont need more movies about how bad men are. We know, they make movies like this.